BAYVIEW College students had a whale of a time participating in the 2024 Tournament of Minds regional and Victorian state finals recently.

The set challenges were sent out six weeks before the regional finals, and a team of six Year 7 and 8 students had to invent a device to deal with plastic pollution, and after some deep thought, a whale came to mind.

A 30-metre whale made from titanium that would eat the plastic waste from the ocean as it swam was the aim. To demonstrate how it would work, the students crafted and brought along a smaller prototype to the tournament on August 25.

Students said they told a few “dad jokes” throughout their official presentation at Deakin University in Geelong, Waurn Ponds.

“Why did the whale blush? Because it saw the ocean's bottom,” they said.

“What do you call a musical group of whales? an orca-hestra.

“Why did the whale cross the ocean? To get to the other tide.”

After all the excitement and laughs, they were pleased to hear they won the challenge and were on to the Victorian state finals held at La Trobe University in Bundoora, Melbourne.

However, there were no six weeks of preparation for the next challenge.

“You just build on what you've already done previously,” Bayview College director of inclusive education Louise Abraham said.

“They do not know the challenge that's going to be presented to them. They will not know until the day.

“They'll go into a room for three hours and attempt to solve the challenge with the materials given to them.

“However, they will be using the skills they've developed in the previous six weeks.”

Those skills are teamwork, communication, creativity, problem-solving, and working within a timeframe.

The state finals were on September 8 and the team achieved second place in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) secondary category.