Student's 100-hour Lego project wins national maths competition

After more than one hundred hours of measuring and building, his recreation of Blue Mountains Grammar School's junior campus in NSW is architecturally accurate from the roofs to the hallways.

His victory in a national maths competition, though, came from how he used said model.

"I had this idea: I wanted to make a sustainable project, so I decided that I would build some sort of accurate scale Lego model... and figure out if the whole Junior School could [run on] solar power," Hume said.

By adding solar panels to selected parts of his Lego creation, Hume calculated that solar power could produce fifteen times the amount of energy currently used by the campus.

His mix of creativity and problem-solving earned him first place in the national Investigating with Mathematics competition.

In the annual contest, students choose their own real-world issue to investigate and use math to calculate a solution.

For Hume's Lego project this meant taking measurements, doing research, meeting experts - and lots and lots of time.

"I had to measure all around the whole school and then scale that into Lego," he said.

"The next bit was actually building the model, which took over a hundred hours and was quite hard. But I do love the model, it's very cool."

To learn more about solar power Hume visited UNSW, where his dad teaches, and spoke with Professor Rob Taylor, a leading expert in solar energy.

After identifying the roof faces best suited for solar panels, Hume used software to determine how much energy the school could produce based on its roof area.

"I did a little side quest, which was to figure out how much energy the school uses per year. So I wrote a letter to the Operations Manager, and he told me that the school uses actually quite a lot of energy," he said.

"But it turns out that if we covered all of this roof in solar panels, the amount of energy that could be produced - which is over 2 million kilowatt-hours - is enough to power more than 15 times the energy that the school needs, so the High School too."

The project may even have a real-world impact, as the school's Business Officer and Operations Manager are investigating the possibility of solar power after hearing Hume's findings.

Hume's teacher, Luke Carr, has been encouraging students to sign up for the Investigating with Mathematics competition for the past seven years.

"We've had a huge amount of success, because it engages the students in activities or mathematical investigations that they're passionate about," Mr Carr said.

"It's certainly a great way to extend students and get them applying those mathematical skills and knowledge to real-world situations."