St John’s College, in Johannesburg, won the first prize in the 2013 Siemens Junior Cyber Junkyard Challenge earlier this month – a competition in which talented learners go head-to-head in building models of energy-saving homes.

Now in its tenth year, the Cyber Junkyard Challenge is one of South Africa’s most popular science and engineering competitions and is a yearly highlight at engineering faculties. Its success at tertiary institutions led to the launch of the junior challenge in 2011.

The learners represent five technical high schools and further education and training (FET) colleges across South Africa and the top five schools were selected from 25 schools and colleges during the regional round of the challenge in July.

In this year’s competition, learners had to design, build and program a fully functional home energy-management system. They had to implement principles of load balancing, power usage calculations, basic logic control and cost management.

The five schools in the final round were Hoër Tegniese Skool John Vorster, in Pretoria; George Campbell School of Technology, in Durban; Brackenfell High School, in Cape Town; Daniel Pienaar Technical High School, in Port Elizabeth; and the winner, St John’s College.

Over the last ten years, hundreds of learners have entered the competition to demonstrate their talent and skill in the practical applica-tion of engineering and technology, which presents challenges that require real-world technology solutions.
“This contest inspires youngsters to focus on maths and science so that they can pursue a career that excites them. South Africa’s lack of science, engineering and technology skills starts with low school maths and science pass rates. In this contest, we have already seen fascinating models of houses that save elec-tricity, which means Siemens is achieving its aim of exposing learners to practical tech-nology in a fun and sociable way,” says Siemens South Africa CE Siegmar Proebstl.

Each team in the junior leg of the competi-tion partners with a tertiary institution in the preparation round, which inspires the learners, while giving tertiary students an opportunity to try their hand at teaching.

Previous competitions developed youngsters’ technical skills by requiring them to design, build and program a container crane, a bottling plant, an automated warehouse, a key-ring production facility, running water, a coffee machine, a mobile soccer game, an air-driven car and a warehouse stacking system.