Maike van der Heide
Budding Marlborough Boys’ College engineers have placed second in the college division of the recent NZAquabots national competition.
Marlborough Boys’ College team the Aquaneers – Tāna Barron, Luke Tucker and Sam Molony – were awarded silver, while the Red Revengers, made up of Luke Bourgeois, Rex Webster, Kymaine King and Ronav Lal, claimed bronze in the college presentation section.
Both teams, made up of year nine students, represented MBC against many older students at the Ministry of Inspiration’s science and engineering-based competition national finals held at the AUT Millennium Centre in Auckland on 1 December.
Teams designed and built a remote-control vehicle (ROV), which performed underwater challenges such as a timed obstacle course and removing and retrieving items.
Teams also had to write a factsheet about their team and ROV and a technical report about their engineering design process, alongside a verbal presentation to the judges, and a quiz.
All tasks were based around the competition’s theme of climate change and adapting to flooding in New Zealand.
“Marlborough Boys' College is so proud of the two Aquabot teams that made it to the national competition and how well they performed across all the competition tasks”, says Marlborough Boys’ College science teacher and Aquabots teacher Katharine Davis.
“I was also very pleased to see five Marlborough teams make it to the national competition, and hopefully local schools will continue with their Aquabot programmes in 2025.”
In the younger categories, Renwick School’s Zebrabots placed third in the Primary category, while Bohally Intermediate’s Angry Geese placed second in the Intermediate category.
Aquaneers coach Suzanne Barron and Red Revengers coach Lisa Bourgeois say the boys worked hard to design, test and modify the ROVs, while also fundraising for the trip, in time for the national competition.
“We only had six weeks to raise funds for the teams to travel to Auckland, which was a big ask,” says Suzanne.
Lisa says the Marlborough community rallied, “from businesses and the Lions Club of Blenheim who generously donated funds or products for our raffle, to grandparents who donated some money and everyone who bought a raffle ticket”.
“Marlborough really stepped up, and we’re very grateful for everyone’s support.”
