Eight months of late nights and lunch breaks spent in the classroom tinkering on a remote-controlled submarine have paid off for five high school students.
Conrad Adams, Isaac Edden, Michaiah Fahey, Lachlan Harrower and Lachlan Reid from St Philip's Christian College Newcastle, have been crowned national champions at the SUBS in Schools Technology competition.
Using coding and electronics, the team who called themselves Atlas Systems, spent countless hours designing and building an operational remote-controlled submarine along with a business component entailing real sponsors.
"Every Thursday as soon as school was done we'd go to the STEM lab and have a long workshop until seven-thirty and we also spent a lot of lunch breaks putting our heads down," team leader Conrad Adams said.
"We all put in a lot of time after school and on weekends, it was like having another subject," he said.
The competition was held at the Penrith Panthers Events Centre from March 29 to 30 where the group had to test the manoeuvrability of their submarine in an underwater obstacle course and speak with industry leaders.
"We had to set up our trade display and we also went down to the pool and put our submarines in and we had to drive it through a couple of gates under the water," Mr Adams said.
While there were some competition nerves, and trial and errors with their submarine, the team was confident in their ability to pull off a success.
"Things do fail on the sub, everything will be working the day before and then as soon as you put it in the water something might go wrong, but thankfully since the engineers knew what they were doing, they were always able to fix something," he said.
"We also had some great help from our teachers and previous competitors which really helped push us."
In addition to winning the competition, the students were also awarded Best Sea Trial, Best Engineering CAD, Best Engineered, Best Team Trade Display, Best Graphic Design, Best Managed Enterprise, Outstanding Industry Collaboration, Best Manufactured Submarine, Best Team Marketing and Best Team Portfolio.
Mr Adams said winning the competition and 10 out of 12 awards, felt relieving and exciting.
"It's really good to finally see how much work we put in, all come together."
"We got out first award and kept on getting awards, that immediately bumped up our confidence. It actually got to the point where we were halfway walking back with one and the judge said we got the next two, so he told us to come back."
STEM teacher David Bonzo said he was impressed with the quality and ability of his students.
"They're all carrying a full load of study so to be able to sacrifice requires vision, and they developed a vision for their own project," he said.
"Conrad was quite instrumental in managing that vision, so that other people could specialise, it was like how a business works. It was a collaborative effort."
He said the competition mirrored how the St Philip's Christian College was helping prepare its students for life.
"They had to liaise and communicate with businesses and convince them to sponsor them. I'll tell you what, they're pretty persuasive. Especially in our current economic climate, it's even harder when you're only a high school student," he said.
The team also received a $5,000 scholarship each and letter of offer to UNSW in Canberra.
Meet the team
Conrad Adams, team manager
Dream job: Aerospace engineer
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the experience?
"It's been a really good bonding opportunity to work as a team and kind of manage a business together."
Q: What were some of the highlights and challenges of the competition?
"Winning, but a lot of it was just being able to put the sub in the water and see it work, or seeing our trade display fully assembled at the national competition."
"There's lots of challenges with meeting industry so it's quite scary going up to a company and asking for sponsorship and also the sub itself is quite technical."
Q:Why are you passionate about STEM?
"I enjoy stem a lot, and it's a good opportunity to network with a lot of important people, we got to meet the Commodore of the Navy and some people from UNSW."
Micaiah Fahey, design engineer
Dream job: Mechatronics engineer
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the experience?
"Getting to learn CAD software which is computer-aided design software."
Q: What were some of the highlights and challenges of the competition?
"When I put the whole sub together and I could see it in person after staring at a computer screen for a few months, finally seeing it as a real thing was pretty satisfying."
"Learning CAD was challenging, it's a really hard software to learn, so I had to go and get proficient at that before I could start designing stuff."
Q:Why are you passionate about STEM?
"I've always had an interest in making stuff. I've always liked the idea of making robots."
Isaac Edden, manufacturing engineer
Dream job: Electrical engineer
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the experience?
"I enjoyed working with actual engineers and learning how to use different softwares and put my ideas into reality."
Q: What were some of the highlights and challenges of the competition?
"The highlight for me was actually getting the submarine in the water and seeing it all fully functioning, and I think the hardest thing for me was asking businesses for money."
Q:Why are you passionate about STEM?
"I've always liked engineering and how things work."
Lachlan Reid, resource manager
Dream job: RAAF Fighter Pilot
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the experience?
"Definitely winning the end. That was probably the most exciting part, but also contacting sponsors for financial support was pretty fun."
Q: What were some of the highlights and challenges of the competition?
"Definitely also contacting businesses, because you don't know what they're going to reply with, it's kind of a stab in the dark."
Q:Why are you passionate about STEM?
"I've always had an interest in STEM and wanted to do a professional competition level."
Lachlan Harrower, graphic designer
Dream job: Exercise physiologist
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the experience?
"I liked being able to showcase some of my skills and it was a good chance for me to give back into a group of people that I'm already very good friends with to pull everything together and see everyone's different skills shine."
Q: What were some of the highlights and challenges of the competition?
"I really loved being able to travel all the way down to Sydney, set everything up and experience the comp for what it actually is and just see all the hard work from the last eight months come together."
"Obviously getting there wasn't easy, almost every step we took there was some kind of set back and we had to just to bounce back from it."
Q:Why are you passionate about STEM?
"STEM is really good for anybody that loves to build stuff, whether it's scientifically, creatively... and I just love that freedom to be able to do that and to see how far I can go with it."
To see more stories and read today's paper download the Newcastle Herald news app here.
