Well, bottle rockets at least. The Aeronautical Velocity Challenge state finals attracted 22 teams from 18 primary and high schools from around NSW, all tasked with designing, building and launching bottle rockets and propellor powered planes.

The brainchild of Bulli High School TAS head teacher Steve Delaney and teachers Dean Hannah from Marsden High School and Brian Barter from Toongabbie Christian School, the competition is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiative aimed at encouraging students to study those subjects.

“The competition is a STEM initiative focussing on addressing Australia’s shortage of scientists and engineers, with a team based competition where students design, create, launch and fly bottle rockets and propellor powered planes,” he said.

Now in its third year, the competition was this year extended to include primary schools, with class activities, regional heats and finals held in 12 regions across NSW before the state finals were held at UOW last Friday. Mr Delaney said the competition was becoming so popular there were plans to expand so more schools can compete at regional level and discussions were underway about developing the competition into a national event.

“We’ve already had interest from a South Australian team and a Queensland team who’ve got wind of it, so if we can step it up to a national competition next year, or in two years, that will be great.”

Watch the rockets in action on the Mercury’s webpage.

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