An attempt to harness perpetual motion, modelling the effects of a landslip in Lake Wakatipu and an investigation into the predator-prey relationship between Moa and the Haast Eagle are just some of the creative experiments from Otago secondary students on display at this year’s science and technology fair.
Judges spent yesterday and today analysing about 200 display boards in the Hutton Theatre at Tūhura Otago Museum of the 282 entries to the Aurora Energy Otago Science and Technology Fair this year.
Fair convener Dr Steven Sexton said he was amazed at what students had produced this year.
A Mt Aspiring College year 7 pupil used a balloon to demonstrate what happens to a scuba diver’s lungs when they plunge into the depths of the ocean.
He said a panel of judges would select the entries to be awarded the premier prizes and individual judges from different organisations including the University of Otago department of zoology and The Otago Institute for the Arts and Sciences would hand out 45 individual prizes.
The year 7 and 8 pupils normally have a five-minute interview with the judges but the year 12 and 13 students got "grilled" for about 20 minutes to really get into what the idea behind the experiment was.
No-one had fainted so far this year.
She said the quality of the projects was of a high standard and some of the projects showed research done at a university standard.
"The main thing I really like to see is the spark of curiosity and what made the student pick that particular subject for their experiment."
It was nice to see more boards incorporating matauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) into them, Dr Anderson said.
She was impressed by a Dunedin North Intermediate year 7 pupil who had done an experiment about dying muka — the fibre in New Zealand flax — using kitchen pantry items like beetroot, tea, coffee and turmeric.
Aurora Energy chief executive Richard Fletcher said it was proud to have supported Otago’s young scientists for the past 20 years.
The science fair was open to the public from tomorrow through to Sunday and would conclude with a prizegiving at 3pm at the St David Lecture Theatre.
