SEVEN Orange Public School students will travel to Sydney to compete in the state titles for Tournament of Minds after taking out the NSW Western title on Sunday.
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The competition challenges teams to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the disciplines of applied technology, language literature, maths engineering and social sciences.
The team, nicknamed A for Effort, consists of year five and six students Emily L’Estrange, Kate Burdack, Darcy Climpson, Cezar Dihel, Amber Shilling, Madeleine Owens and Ethan Delaney, who competed in the language literature section and will travel to Sydney on September 14 to compete against other regional finalists for the state championships at University of New South Wales.
There were five other groups in the section, including another from Orange Public School, at the regional competition at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, and on the day the team were given a spontaneous question, which Madeleine said challenged them to describe a historical item after only a few minutes’ planning.
“I like to create things and I thought it was a great challenge to be in"
“In 25 words or less, you had to say what it was, what it did, where it was found and why it was preserved,” Madeleine said.
A for Effort also performed a short 10-minute play they had written themselves using characters from fables, mythology and poems, including Helen of Troy, Bill from Mulga Bill’s Bicycle by AB Paterson and Gretel from Hansel and Gretel.
No teacher involvement was allowed in the students’ planning, and Madeleine said they also had to make all their own costumes.
“I like to create things and I thought it was a great challenge to be in,” Madeleine said.
“I liked it when everyone laughed because our focus was on humour and costumes, and we scored highest out of everyone in humour.”
alexandra.king@fairfaxmedia.com.au