The Da Vinci Decathlon 

On the 9th of April, 16 students from Holy Cross competed in the Da Vinci Decathlon, which was held at the Illawarra Christian School. The Da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. We had to be there at 7:45 am so it was a very early start for all of us. There were 20 schools, and over 300 students competing this year.This year’s Da Vinci decathlon topic was “Technology and Innovation”. The day was super fun, exciting, and also extremely challenging. There were 10 challenging disciplines ( subjects ) to compete in:

English: Where you had to write a short story (200-300 words)

Maths: Where you had to solve mathematical equations 

Science: Composing a procedure text for creating reusable energy with waste

Ideation: Where you have to make a solution to a real world problem

Art and Poetry: Composing a poem along with a piece of art with a 3 dimensional aspect

Creative Producers: Where you have to perform a short dramatic performance (1 min)

Engineering: Where you create a project that has a moving aspect

Cartography: Studying and identifying maps 

Legacy: About Leonardo Da Vinci 

Codebreaking: Where you have to decipher codes

All of the disciplines linked to technology and innovation, including things like AI ( artificial intelligence ), futuristic inventions, and reusable energy. Completing some of these disciplines were exceedingly challenging, especially in engineering, ideation, and codebreaking. At the end of the last session, there were small fun quizzes and questions to solve as a team before finding out the final results.  This year's Da Vinci decathlon was a fulfilling experience and a day of extreme thinking, having fun, and being creative!

These were the 2 teams:

Year Six (Right photo)

Emma B -  “The best thing about the Da Vinci Decathlon was the outstanding teamwork from my fellow team members and l would do it again with my amazing team.”

Emma M- “I loved it because it was challenging and it was good working as a team.”

Amelia - “It was a day of hard thinking and being creative! I had lots of fun!”

Amos- “It was really fun but a lot of the questions were hard to answer.”

Jimmy- “I loved it! It was fun but challenging”

Maya - “ It was amazing, it was challenging and fun!”

Mattia - “ I thought it was really amazing and it was great working as a team”

Mollyrose- “I thought it was really fun and I had a great time working together” 

Year Five (Left photo)

Jesse- “I think the day went very well and I had a lot of fun. I would definitely like to do it again. All I can say is I loved it.”

Lachlan- “I thought the day went really well, I think we worked well as a team and I can say on behalf of everyone, we all had a lot of fun. I would definitely like to do it again next year.”

Sophia - “I really enjoyed it!”

Vida - “I felt good and happy and I had a lot of fun”

Indigo - “I loved working as a team and I felt really challenged. I would love to do it again.”

Ally -“ I loved the activities but they were intense”

Sage -“ It was really fun and I enjoyed the experience”

Lee - “It was a very fun experience and challenged me, which I enjoyed.”