Year 8 National da Vinci Decathalon Champions
It is with great joy that I write about the recent success of our Year 8 da Vinci Team, who placed first at the Nationals on Monday 27th July. Isabella Attard, Grace Beck, Kikki Chen, Rosa Kim, Alice Mao, Ruhani Surana, Amber Li and Katherine Pan are a formidable team! It goes without saying that they are incredible scholars, capable of near perfect scores in disciplines as diverse as Cartography and Ideation. What gives this team the “edge”, though, is their abundance of “soft skills”.
When it comes to working harmoniously with others, these are the soft skills that Dr Steel, who heads up the Department of Marketing in Deakin Business School, says you need:
- leadership
- communication
- interaction
- teamwork
- listening
- innovation
- creativity
- problem solving
It has been a pleasure watching this team grow and develop their soft skills over the past year and a half. They set their own goals and schedule their own meetings. They are quick to respond to e-mails and adept at making group decisions; they know their strengths, taking control in areas of expertise; they are open to feedback and suggestions, and are always up for a challenge, including taking on a new discipline in the competition to compensate for someone’s absence. It is one of the many blessings of my role, observing the workings of a well-oiled machine!
It beggars belief what these students are capable of producing, given the crippling time limits for each discipline and the pressure that comes with representing Pymble at the very highest level! Here are a few insights into the challenges they surmounted. In keeping with this year’s theme of ‘Experimentation’, the girls produced an artwork and poem demonstrating the avant-garde form and style, detailed the process of designing a car, and deciphered codes to encrypt passwords. They also built this incredible structure in less than one hour with limited resources for Engineering (see image, below).
Clearly this is is a team worthy of celebrating (and cloning)! Congratulations to our National Champions and thank you to all the teachers, parents, and helpers who contributed to their success!
