Northampton students claim national science award for Cyclone Seroja-inspired project

Three students from St Mary’s School in Northampton are set to showcase their cyclone Seroja-inspired project in Melbourne next week after taking out a national science competition.

Year 3 students Grady Simpson, Lola Maver, Danyul Wilkes and teacher Laura Lang will represent their school at the STEM MAD (Making a Difference) Challenge in Melbourne next Tuesday.

The group designed a house named the “No Blow”, which uses hydraulic arms to lock the roof down during a cyclone, creating a bunker.

They said the idea for the project came when they saw the damage in Northampton following cyclone Seroja, during which Grady and Lola lost their homes.

“Looking around our town, we had such empathy for all the people who had lost their homes and decided this was a problem that we can make a difference to future generations,” Grady said.

The students said they noticed most of the damage was caused by roofs being torn off and they later found the reason for this was due to verandas.

“As the bad weather approaches the air pressure above the roof becomes less from the upward motion of the cyclone and the pressure below the roof becomes greater,” Grady said.

“It is this pressure difference that lifts up the roof enough for the sideways wind to blow it off with every veranda acting as a big sail to help it tear off the roof.”

Mrs Lang said they were honoured to have won the national prize for their No Blow project and were very excited to head to Melbourne.

“We didn’t think being such a small school that things like this could happen to us,” she said.

“To have the students see that what they’re doing in school is more than just about getting good grades and it can make a difference to the whole world or to our community or to Australia is a really big positive of the STEM MAD nationals.

“The kids love it, they just absolutely thrive in that environment.”