Winning Formula for Boys’ School at Science Fair

Following on from the Boys’ School Science Symposium, a select group of young scientists from our Senior School presented their science projects for judging at the Auckland Regional NIWA Science and Technology Fair hosted at Epsom Girls’ Grammar. The boys’ projects were put on display alongside the top 200 projects from 22 schools within the central Auckland area.

At the Prizegiving, the judges said that the standard across Year 7 and 8 this year was extremely high, so we were delighted that 14 of our boys were recognised with 16 awards. Five of the projects were singled out for special awards!

The projects were varied, interesting and, in some cases, very imaginative! Two of the projects topped their sections, with Luka Ljubisavljevic’s project ‘Sound Tsuanami’ also attracting The University of Auckland Physics Prize in the Physical World section. His project looked at whether the shape and size of the external ear affected how sound is received by the internal auditory system.  Pairing up to work on their project ‘Chill Pill,’ Jackson Horton and Jack Becker also won the first prize in the Material World for their investigation of the rate at which pain medication dissolves in the stomach. 

Jack Priddy, Zavier Edmonds and Will Tisdall were all awarded third prize in their sections with Jack also receiving the Auckland Museum Scientist for a Day special prize for his project on micro-organisms and the health of the Hauraki Gulf. A further  three special prizes were also awarded to Highly Commended students, Sam Roberton and Ben Poole, Tim Shires and Stuart Campbell, and Jules Webb for their detailed studies. 

As always there was a diverse range of imaginative projects displayed for the judges to ponder but the winning projects were selected on the basis of their rigour to carry out repeated scientific measurements, fair testing, analysis of the results, returning to reflect on the hypothesis and taking into account any experimental error. 

Well done boys! 

Top Placed Prize Winners:

Luka Ljubisavljevic                           Sound Tsunami                Physical World                  1st + Special Prize

Jackson Horton & Jack Becker     Chill Pill                               Material World                 1st

Jack Priddy                                        Micro-organisms              Living World                      3rd + Special Prize

Zavier Edmonds                               Memories on Trial           Human Behaviour            3rd

Will Tisdall                                        Fantastic Filters                Planet Earth & Beyond   3rd

Highly Commended:

Sam Roberton & Ben Poole          Music and memory          Biology                               HC + Special Prize

Tim Shires & Stuart Campbell      Purrr-edators                     Biology                               HC + Special Prize

Jules Webb                                       Electricity Generation     Physics                                HC + Special Prize  

Cameron Adams                              Wifi - the online world    Physics                                HC

Andrew Davies                                Rust Never Sleeps            Physics                                HC         

Jack Harman and Kameron Li      Tsunami Busters               Planet Earth                      HC

Ferguson Muthu                             Beat the Beats                  Biology                               HC