Science Quest 2019: the winners announced

31 MAY 2019

Science Quest 2019: the winners announced

The Lycée des Mascareignes, Royal College Curepipe and Loreto College Bambous Virieux distinguished themselves at the Science Quest 2019. Organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Science Center, and sponsored by MCB Group, this competition has reached its sixth edition this year. The award ceremony was held on Friday 31st May 2019 at the Octave Wiehe Auditorium in Réduit.

This competition, which aims to promote science and innovation, is open to secondary school students. Through Science Quest, MCB wants to motivate young people to innovate and find solutions where adults only see problems. By supporting youth innovation, MCB wants to inspire tomorrow's adults to think differently.

The Science Quest final held on 29^th and 30^th May, saw the participation of some 420 students and accompanying teachers from 61 colleges of Mauritius. This year, 125 teams had submitted their applications and following the first selection process, 84 of them were chosen to participate in the finals.

These students were divided into the following three categories:

Category 1: Grade 7, 8 and 9
Category 2: Guard 10 and 11
Category 3: Grades 12 and 13

Participants demonstrated ingenuity, creativity and innovation in their attempts to find solutions combining science and technology to solve a variety of everyday problems. Energy, recycling, agriculture, safety and health are among the main themes touched upon.

The winning teams of Science Quest 2019 are as follows:

The Lycée des Mascareignes has won the award in the category reserved for Grades 12 and 13 with their project entitled "Les Automates Cellullaires".
The Royal College Curepipe, winner of the Grades 10 and 11 category, presented the "Piezo Stair: A Power Harvesting Staircase" project.
Students from Loreto College Bambous Virieux was awarded first place in the in Grades 7, 8 and 9 category with a "Monitoring Water-Level Using Mobile Phones" project.

These teams all received a cash prize of Rs 20 000 each.

Five awards were offered in each category. Institutions ranked second and third earned cash prizes of Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000, respectively, while colleges ranked fourth and fifth each earned Rs 4,000. All awards were offered by MCB Group.