Tournament of Minds

Tournament Of Minds was an overall unique experience. It’s like Drama, Science, English, Math and Art all mixed into one big play that you have to perform, except there is no fear of failing, because you can’t fail. We spent a lot of time preparing for the day and working on the challenge in the short time frame of 20 days that we were given. We worked quite well as a team, everyone had a part of the project that they were working on, and it was wonderful to see it all finally come together towards the end. I was in charge of construction of our gold platform, as I had a lot of experience with motorized LEGO. On the day everyone managed to arrive in time for our performance (just), and our little play that we had spent so much effort on turned out alright. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing ever is; the projector didn’t work, so it was lucky that we weren’t relying on it, and we messed up a few lines here and there, and I spun the module the wrong way one time, but other than that it went perfectly fine. There was also the spontaneous challenge and we formed a solution to that problem cooperatively. If you are passionate about something, it really doesn’t matter, you could really love science, or computers, or robots, or drama, or anything, and you wish for a unique experience, I’m sure there will be something in it for you in Tournament of The Minds.
Lucas P (8B)


Two teams from Penola Catholic College travelled to Latrobe University on August 21st to compete in the STEM division of the Tournament of Minds competition. Two teams were given the assignment of conducting research on gold and its historical significance. We had to create characters, settings, clothes, props, and more to go along with the information we had gathered. Both groups approached this task in quite different ways. My group built a moving platform out of cardboard that was painted black with a Lego motor that spun thanks to an app that controlled the motor. On top, we hot glued a 300 gram gold nugget that was constructed out of gold paper. An Egyptian necklace, an Incan cup, and other gold relics were among the many gold objects we created. Our presenters dressed as their own personas while acting out various scenarios in costumes. We honed our acting skills and reviewed our scripts several times before the presenting day. We forgot a few lines and scenes during the performance, but it wasn't too bad in the end. After we were done, we were asked to complete our Spontaneous challenge in another area. We were given an issue, an objective, and a list of requirements for this task. We hardly had any time to think of solutions to this problem. We had to present the judges with three options and explain why we selected them. We only had time to discuss two ideas before the time ran out, but we swiftly improvised and came up with another proposal on the fly to present to the judges. Overall, TOM and the different obstacles it presented to us were enjoyable to me. I like being able to share my opinions and hear those of others. If given a chance to do this again, I would definitely be happy to accept.
Artemis Rezaei Mirghaed (8I)


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