2026
Challenge Training
Years 3 and 4
DEEP SEA ARCHITECT
The ocean is a high stakes environment where the balance between gravity pulling down and buoyancy pushing up determines the survival of a mission. In the world of marine engineering, we don't guess, we calculate. You are one of the Lead Engineers for Aura-Marine Research. Your task is to certify the "Mark-1 Observation Pod" for its maiden voyage. Mark-1 has been designed as a "movable room" that can either sit on top of the waves or rest on the sea floor. However, The Mark-1 doesn't know yet what its job will be. That depends entirely on your calculations. You must determine if this pod will stay on the surface as a communication hub or descend and sink to the deep ocean floor as a benthic laboratory.
Years 3 and 4
Priority
Access case
Your advanced mathematics teacher has selected your team for a unique opportunity. The Invisible Agency is recruiting! Could your team become members of this secret organization that solves crimes involving international espionage? Your teacher believes you have what it takes. Your first task awaits. Before you sits the Priority Access Case, a secure briefcase locked with a four-digit code. Inside lies your true first assignment, but the code will not be handed to you. It must be earned through skill and precision. To succeed, your team will need to master two essential mathematical disciplines: Reverse Polish Notation, a mathematical method that mirrors how computers process calculations, and the strategic application of functions of functions, where order and composition determine the outcome. The code awaits!
Years 3 and 4
The Book
Doctor
Felicity Melisande has a gift, an amazing literary talent that can cure your ills! She runs a small cosy bookshop called “Goodness and Gracious”, where customers often wander in, unsure about what kind of book they are looking for. Luckily for them, Felicity is a wonder at diagnosing literary needs and prescribing the perfect story for the perfect reader! As word has spread about Felicity’s talents however, the queues of eager shoppers in need of help are growing — so she needs to hire some apprentices! Are you the clever and creative literary apothecaries Felicity is looking for? Can you get to know her bookshop customers and come up with some amazing story recommendations to restore and revitalise their love of literature? You’ll need to peruse the shelves, share a favourite fiction of your own, and maybe even write something new — as Felicity would say, a little bit of creativity can sometimes be the best medicine!
Years 5 and 6
LAdy Stanza's
last sonnet
Everyone knows this famous story — about that eccentric old adventurer and poet called Lady Elizabeth Stanza who was rumoured to have hidden her vast fortune before she died, and the only real clue to its whereabouts is the mysterious poem she left in her will. Fortune hunters, literary scholars and cryptographers have all tried to solve it, but the secrets of Lady Stanza’s last sonnet remain lost, and the treasure remains undiscovered… Your team of enterprising poets and fortune-hunters are determined to employ your combined skills in rhyme and reason to finally reveal the mystery! Will you complete the strange sonnet, work out the location of the hidden treasure trove, and write an account of your adventure — or will Lady Stanza have the last poetic laugh?!
Years 5 and 6
The
Mathematician's
VAUlt
Somewhere deep in a hidden chamber, a legendary mathematician has sealed away their greatest discovery, protected by a three-letter code that only the sharpest mathematical minds can unlock. The vault will not budge for guesswork. It demands logic, pattern recognition, and precision. "The numbers hold the secret. Arrange them, analyse them, decode them and the vault is yours." In this challenge, students become code-breakers. They must work through three escalating stages. Every step demands both mathematical skill and careful reasoning. Get it right, and the vault opens. Rush it, and the secret stays buried.
Years 5 and 6
Star
Struck
Skaters
A cosmic solar flare has just scrambled the pre-programmed navigation systems of the entire Intergalactic Roller Derby. The visiting teams are stranded, their sleek starships grounded, with no way to plot a course home. Your crew is their last hope. Each anxious alien has crucial pieces of information about the star at the centre of their home solar system. They can describe its temperature, its key chemical composition, and the precise speed at which it is moving toward or away from our galaxy. You are handed a stack of stellar spectrograms—the light-fingerprints of distant suns. Within these colourful bands and dark absorption lines lie the secrets of identity, motion, and elemental makeup. Decode the spectrums. Match the data. Navigate the stars to send every homesick skater shooting toward the right pinprick of light. Time to roll!
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