We were delighted to hear at the end of last term that two of our scientists had placed in the top three of the #700STEMChallenge. The competition, initiated by a sixth former from Sydenham High School in 2018, has been running every year since and is open to both GDST and local London schools. Students were invited to write 700 words on a topic of their choice on Science, Technology & Engineering or Maths.

Abby G in Year 7 (pictured receiving her award) was presented with second place in the Under 14 Technology & Engineering category for her article, “Will Artificial Intelligence Conquer the World?” Sia P in Year 12 (pictured on the right) achieved third place in the same category for the Under 18s with her article “Structural Colour: The Future of Materials?”

We asked Sia about her prize winning writing:

Why did you choose to write on those topics? Was it something in a lesson that inspired you or was it outside of school?

I wrote my article on the topic of structural colour, an area that I briefly came across when researching advances in materials science for a summer course. I found it so interesting that it was the first thing that I thought of when starting to write.

What was the most interesting part as you were writing or researching it?

Before starting my research, I had no idea how common structural colour is in nature – it can even be found on the petals of buttercups and the feathers of hummingbirds. I was surprised that I hardly knew that it existed before researching it for this competition.

What was the most difficult thing about doing it? (was it hard to keep to the word limit?)

The most difficult thing for me was narrowing down my extremely vast subject area into a short and concise format – I had to know when to stop going on research tangents to avoid confusing people who would be reading. It was tricky as every piece of research I came across was so interesting!

Will you be pursuing this topic further?

I’ll definitely be keeping up with new developments in materials science as it is such a rapidly advancing area. It can be applied to so many different sectors, such as medicine, engineering and nanotechnology, so I encourage others to explore it too

Would you recommend other students to take part next year?

I think that this competition is a great way to discover new areas of STEM that we don’t learn at school, and to research a subject that sparks your interest in more detail. I definitely recommend having a go!

Scroll down to the #700STEMChallenge Magazine Finalists 2022 link here to read their thought provoking articles.

Congratulations to Abby and Sia!