NorthTec has been taking engineering into schools to give students an idea of what can be achieved in the field, with a robot challenge part of the lesson.
Year 9 students in the new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) stream at Whangarei's Te Kapehu Whetu school got a taste of engineering with a two-day visit from NorthTec teachers. Student teams constructed a "bristlebot", a sort of motorised toothbrush, and raced it against other teams.
The exercise was to make the point that engineering is all about creative and intelligent problem-solving.
Mirko Wojnowski, leader of the NorthTec project, said taking the subject into local schools was a great way to introduce engineering to a large number of students.
