STEM Award

STEMbusters, Golden Beach State School, Golden Beach, Qld

Children struggle to learn about STEM in a fun way. This happens for many reasons including the school environment, different learning styles, learning from home (just think about COVID-19 and the recent lockdowns worldwide). Our app aims to improve the problem-solving skills of students helping them cope with real-life situations through fun STEM learning. Have you ever wondered how to build a tall building out of paddle pop sticks, what happens when you drop an egg from a height and how to fold the perfect paper plane? The STEMbusters app features a range of engaging self-paced activities including links to a bank of instructional videos for pre-teen students in Years 5 and 6 children. Made by students for students. See an example of our fun activities here.

Game Changer Award – Primary School

Aboriginal Awareness, All Saints’ College, Bull Creek, WA

Have you ever experienced inequality or unfair judgement? Well, that’s what our app is trying to stop. You will have fun battles with your native Australian animal avatar while you learn about the richness and cleverness of Indigenous Australian culture. You will learn information about the cultural history of our land that will grow respect. This will promote equality in our own country.  To play the game, choose a question about Indigenous heroes, sustainability, the seasons and the arts. If you get it right you can blast the enemy but if you get them wrong the enemy can blast you but when that happens you will get another chance.  

Game Changer Award – Secondary School

Qld Railway Accessibility by St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School, Corinda, Qld

Our app, Qld Railway Accessibility, aims to solve the problems that people with disabilities face at train stations by allowing them to check the accessibility features available at each train station, and easily book station assistance. The user can create a profile that stores details such as their assistance needs, most frequently used stations, etc. This stored information and the app’s direct messaging feature makes booking assistance much quicker compared to over the phone and prevents miscommunication. Additionally, users can easily check each station’s accessibility features. Consequently, they can decide to use train stations that are accessible for them and avoid being inconvenienced.

The Jewella Award – Primary School

Rescue Rangers for Wildlife, Kambala, Rose Bay, NSW

Our app helps children 4 – 10 years old care about Australian wildlife. In our app, we have a logo which is a koala named Rachel Ranger who guides children on how to use the app. We created a menu where you can press the little clouds to get ideas on how to look after wildlife. These ideas came from our research into what are the best things to do in Australia to support wildlife rescue and conservation. The top ideas were educating our friends and family, building a sanctuary in your own garden and recycling all the time. To help young children use our app, we added a button to click to hear the instructions instead of them reading the words if they can’t read yet.

The Jewella Award – Secondary School

Domestic Violence App by St Michael’s Collegiate School, Hobart, Tasmania

Our domestic violence app is hidden from the outside and hidden on the inside. Through hidden links, users will be brought to a domestic violence help page. This app will feature things like helplines, websites, tips, and even an option to add a close friend, that way they’ll be notified when the user needs help. This app will be password protected, and every time the wrong password is entered, the friend gets notified. All calling and online use on the app is done through the wifi, in incognito mode, so it does not appear on the phone’s history.

Best App Name

Where 2 do a Number 2, Girl Guides Queensland

Our app ‘where 2 do a number 2’ we have been designed in a way that people from Rockhampton and Gladstone can access public restrooms in close proximity to them, which will encourage people to go outside whilst also knowing that there are bathrooms nearby. The reason we designed this app is that most maps do not have all public restrooms available, meaning that most would be too far to walk or go. We also wanted to cater for disability toilets for travellers in our towns. Knowing what times, they are open day or night and cleanliness of toilets.

Detectiva Award

Sign-a-Song, Somerset College, Mudgeeraba, Qld

The Superlatives have created an app called Sign a Song, helping people connect to the deaf community. It lets you learn songs but in a more unique way, it teaches you these songs in Auslan and Australian sign language. There is a function where you can search for any song, but before giving you do you have the choice of either watching someone sign the song or learning how to sign the song. Our aim is to show that we are all one and no matter if someone is special, we all have hearts and hands to sign a song.

Bandicoot Bonding, Dulwich Hill Public School, Dulwich Hill, NSW

Our app is about bringing awareness to a massive problem in our local area. Dulwich Hill has a small community of eastern long-nosed bandicoots (Perameles Nasuta). Our school’s mascot is a bandicoot, and when we found out that they were listed as a threatened species, we felt inspired to do something. The reason behind their disappearance is tributed to being mistaken for rats; targeted by predators such as cats, foxes and dogs; and sadly, roadkill. The app will allow users to upload photos and locations of bandicoot sightings as well as engaging minigames designed to entertain and inform.

Ori-Calm-Me, Windsor State School, Windsor, Qld

Our app is a calming, stress-relieving opportunity to get rid of anxiety and to dive into a calm, relaxing experience with peaceful origami and music. With simple step-by-step instructions, you won’t get confused by complicated pictures or guides. We want to make a world where it’s less stressful and more relaxed. Would you want to live in a world where everyone you meet is worrying about one thing or another, and almost everyone is suffering from mental health conditions? We want to make sure that never happens, and that every cloud, no matter how dark, has a positive silver lining.