Recently the Year 8 Opti-MINDS Team flew to Brisbane to compete in the Opti-MINDS Queensland and National Finals and came home National Champions of the Division II Language and Literature Section. Opti-MINDS is a creative problem-solving program that encourages sustainable thinking and gives students opportunities to solve the problems of the future.

The team was in the city for three days. On the first day we took a river cruise up the Brisbane River to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. The cruise was a great opportunity to see the city and delve into its’ diverse history, whilst the sanctuary was filled with adorable animals that we all loved. On the second day of our trip we, among the other Opti-MINDS teams, entered the 20/20 Youth Vision Forum. All of the teams came up with a positive idea/project for the future and we shared these ideas with our peers. Our teams’ idea, The Embracelet Project, was highly popular, and three separate parties reached out to us about implementing the program within their schools and communities. On the final day we competed in the actual competition, which had two sections. The first was a “spontaneous” challenge, where we had 10 minutes to solve a problem as creatively as possible. The second was the long-term challenge, where we were locked in a room and given three hours to create a 10-minute presentation based around a problem we had to solve. Overall, it was an amazing, fun and challenging trip that we would recommend to any who have the opportunity to go.

Gabrielle Hawkes on behalf of the Year 8 Opti-MINDS team