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A team of Year 10 students from Kelvin Grove State College have earned a respectable fifth place at the University of Newcastle's Science and Engineering Super Challenge after becoming the first Queensland team to reach the national finals.

"This is the first year that Queensland schools have competed in the national finals," Acting Science Head of Department at Kelvin Grove State College Karen Gosney said.

"The schools from New South Wales have been competing for five years.  We came fifth out of the 336 schools that competed across Australia on our first try."

Kelvin Grove was one of only two Queensland state schools to reach the national finals, held on October 27, with Cavendish Road State High School competing in the Grand Challenge event.

The Science and Engineering Challenge aims to stimulate Year 10 students' interest in science and mathematics.  It involves a series of eight challenges that require the students to exercise their creative and scientific skills to solve problems and design and build functional solutions.

The Kelvin Grove State College team were runners-up in two of the eight challenges on the day: designing a safe doll's chair and building a helium powered hot air balloon that could navigate an obstacle course.

"There is a lot of physics and problem-solving involved in the challenges.  Working in teams is very important, too.  The teams have to be able to work with a lot of distraction because the eight challenges all take place in the same hall," Ms Gosney said.

"The kids were proud to represent the school.  They behaved themselves very well."

"Most of them got up at 3.30 in the morning to be at the airport by 5 am.  The parental support was great," she said.

EOF is a program that has been developed for schools that introduces students to specific engineering, science or technology concepts in a clear, simple way including demonstrations and hands-on exercises.  The units are:

Up, Up and Away: Flight and Aeronautics And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Towers and Bridges SlickBusters: Substances, Surfaces and Separations Raising the Titanic: Buoyancy and Mechanical Advantage

NSW students in years 7 to 10 and 11 to 12 are gaining valuable exposure to engineering through a partnership between the Local Government Engineers Association of NSW and the Re-Engineering Australia Forum.

A hub of high schools has been created in the Shoalhaven Local Government area, and a Hunter hub incorporating Cessnock, Maitland and Singleton is being finalised.

The program gives students access to design software and links schools by broadband technology to encourage students to learn more about engineering via a computer-based project that lets students ‘talk' to one another about their interests.