In another corner, a heavy toy car is about to be pushed down a ramp to test the load-bearing strength of the model bridges the year 6 kids have spent the morning designing and building.

The room is filled with shrill laughter, cheering, groans for near misses, and loads of excess youthful energy.

It has the feel of a school sports carnival about it.

But the event that has got these kids so excited is a science and engineering roadshow presented by the University of Newcastle.

Avondale School, at Cooranbong, hosted the two-day event this week.

High school students took part in the Science and Engineering Challenge on Tuesday. Primary school children enjoyed a “discovery day” on Wednesday.

The Science and Engineering Challenge is a nationwide science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach program run by the university with the support, in Lake Macquarie, of the council and the Rotary clubs of Morisset and Toronto Sunrise.

Program director Dr Terry Burns said the high school teams were part of a national competition that would culminate in a final in Tasmania this year.

“The discovery day for the year 5 and 6 kids is to get kids involved in STEM so that they discover ‘Not only can I do this, but I had fun’,” Dr Burns said.

The Science and Engineering Challenge was launched in 2000, chiefly as a recruitment exercise to boost university enrolments in STEM subjects.

Primary school children were introduced to the discovery day program on the back of research that showed children were making career choices much earlier than teachers had previously thought.

“Children in years 3, 4 and 5 are actually making those decisions,” Dr Burns said.

This is not to say that an eight-year-old necessarily knows that they want to become, say, a radiologist. But they will be aware that they want a job where they can help sick or injured people to get better, Dr Burns said.

“The hope is that in 10 years’ time some of these kids will pop up working in the industry,” he said.

Eight primary schools participated in six activity challenges on Wednesday.

In the one called Electropolis, kids worked with electric cables and plugs on a board depicting a city. They were challenged to determine which route the electricity wires should take to best meet the city’s needs.

“This one is a networking problem,” Dr Burns said. “The kids are using quite complicated mathematics without even knowing it.”

Dr Burns said he was constantly surprised by the creativity, problem-solving skills, and approaches displayed by the children.

“Sometimes I’m surprised when a child tells me that they’ve had a great day because this was the first time they’ve ever made something,” he said.

While he takes the compliment, he can’t help but lament the time children have apparently lost to electronic devices at the expense of 

And then there are the unorthodox model bridge designs that the primary school children come up with that prove superior to anything the high school students can muster.

“I look at those and say ‘Wow! I would never have thought of doing it like that’,” Dr Burns said.