The ultimate Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci was clever at many things - and the spirit of his creative legacy was well on show in an academic competition bearing his name that was attended by hundreds of the region's students last week.
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Bright young minds from 10 schools relished the challenges presented to them in the eighth Northern NSW da Vinci Decathlon hosted by The Armidale School.
To achieve success, the teams of eight students had to work together across 10 disciplines: Engineering, Mathematics, Code Breaking, Art and Poetry, Science, English, Ideation, Creative Producers, Cartography and Legacy.
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"It's such a fun competition and really challenging, also learning to work together with your classmates in teams learning about things that aren't part of the normal curriculum," said Will Gilpin, a member of the TAS team which was the overall Year 9 division winner.
Teammate Holly Dauparas agreed.
"My favourite was Engineering - it was so good to be able to just be creative and build stuff when most of the other challenges are mainly theory."
That comes as no surprise to coordinator Ben Bradshaw from Knox Grammar School which devised the event.
"Decathlons are held in cities and several regional areas, and generally, while the city kids tend to be fantastic at the formulaic papers like Maths and Science, when it comes to the papers like Creative Producers, Ideation, Art and Poetry and Engineering, a lot of the regional students are the most creative which is really nice to see," he said.
"After a year off due to the pandemic, all the teams were super keen and collaborated really well to complete the tasks.
"The Decathlon is wonderful for the way it delivers on a range of tangible skills that aren't in the normal curriculum, and to be able to give regional students the opportunity to be part of that here, is just really valuable."
The honours were shared around the region, with TAS having podium finishes in five of the six divisions. Winners of each division will be invited to attend the state final at Knox Grammar School in Sydney later in the year.
Overall results
Year 5
- 1 Armidale City Public School
- 2 Calrossy Anglican School
- 3 The Armidale School
Year 6
- 1 The Armidale School
- 2 Carinya Christian School
- 3 Calrossy Anglican School
Year 7
- 1 Armidale Secondary College
- 2 Carinya Christian School
- 3 Calrossy Anglican School
Year 8
- 1 Calrossy Anglican School
- 2 Carinya Christian School
- 3 The Armidale School
Year 9
- 1 The Armidale School
- 2 Armidale Secondary College
- 3 NEGS
Year 10
- 1 Calrossy Anglican School
- 2 The Armidale School
- 3 O'Connor Catholic College
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