By Jamie Furness
Two students from St John’s Anglican College have each been awarded Student Subject Awards across separate categories in the DATTA (Design And Technology Teacher Association) QLD 2022 State Finals.
Year 9 student Lillie Turner was awarded the State Champion for Excellence in the Australian Curriculum Design and Technologies for year 9 for her “Battle of the Bridges” submission.
Year 8 student Sarbani Maitra was awarded the State Champion for her Tom and Jerry Automata project.
Lillie’s Battle of the Bridges project also achieved first place at an in-school Battle of the Bridges competition held at St John’s Anglican College last year.
The competition required students in the Engineering and Design and Technologies classes at St John’s to make a weight-bearing bridge out of balsa wood.
Lillie’s bridge weighed 77 grams and supported a load of 47 kilograms before failing – supporting 662 times its own weight.
“It had to be innovative,” Lillie said. “We could only use PVA glue, it had to span about a 700 millimetre gap, and it could only be 180mm high,” she said.
Lillie’s bridge, which weighed 77 grams, supported the most weight at of 47 kilograms – 662 times its own weight.
It was also one of the lightest bridges, which helped secure her first prize.
“It felt pretty good – I was pretty proud of myself,” Lillie said.
Lillie Turner (Centre)
Sarbani Maitra’s Tom and Jerry Automata project, inspired by one of her favourite childhood cartoons, was completed as a year 8 Design and Technologies assignment using wood and acrylic.
“Basically, it uses hand-powered mechanisms so the characters could move up and down,” she said.
“I added popsicle sticks for the fence and a couple of fake flowers for decoration.”
Sarbani said she didn’t expect to win the award for the assignment, but was grateful after all the time and hard work it took to create it.
“I just want to thank the [Design and Technologies] staff at St John’s, Mr Pascoe and Mr St George who all helped me this year,” she said.
“I also want to give a special thanks to Mr Ralph, my DET teacher for the last two years and for all the opportunities he has given our students.”
Sarbani Maitra (Centre).
