Thursday 12th August 2021 saw sponsors, friends, and media gather at Basestation and Tinkd Makerspace for the official STEMFest 2021 launch.

The Board of STEM Wana Trust and organising team were delighted to share our exciting highlights for STEM in the Community and STEMFest on 3rd October 2021. It was great to see so many familiar faces as well as new faces join us and share in our excitement for the upcoming Tauranga STEM Festival.

At our inaugural STEMFest event in 2019 we were privileged to have kaumatua Tamati Tata to give a beautiful karakia. We were honoured to have him attend our event to help us officially launch STEMFest, our outreach projects, and Tinkd Makerspace.

Introducing STEM in the Community

STEM in the Community is about taking STEM directly into our community and outside of the city hubs.

This year we will be taking STEM to six different locations across the Bay of Plenty and even into neighbouring Waikato! During the week we hope to reach over 900 children and their families. 

Collaborating with local venues and specialist content providers. Our goal is to make STEM accessible and reach young people who might not get a chance to experience fun and creative STEM because of their location.

STEM in the Community will take place at the end of August and tie in with the general release of tickets for STEMFest!

STEMFest 2021 Highlights

As before, we will be closing down a block of Durham Street to host the biggest STEM street festival in the world!

Filling the street with exciting STEM experiments and activities as well as within Basestation, Aspire2, University of Waikato – and – our headline sponsor’s building at Trustpower HQ.

With something for everyone to experience and enjoy, STEMFest is for all ages and 100% FREE to attend thanks to our amazing sponsors.

STEM Superhero Mascot Winner

The evening ended with the exciting announcement for the winner of the STEM Superhero Mascot for STEMFest. Local STEM friend Yun, aged 11 won with her creation “Aquabot”. Aquabot is a superhero that removes microplastics from seawater and turns it into energy and electricity.

Winner – Aquabot

All of our finalists were presented with their very own digitalised version of their mascot designs “Seeda” and “Kiwi Carbon Convertor” with artwork produced by super talented Tauranga-based illustrator Hope McConnell.

Special mention and thanks to:

Kaumatua Tamati Tata for the karakia.

Erin, Soraya, Phoebe from Smart Cookies NZ for making the delicious food and preparations.

Kell and Sophie for their help in setting up.

Ewa for making the fun science rainbow mocktails and all her help behind the scenes.

Natalie for judging and presenting the finalists of the Mascot competition.

Annie and Anne-Marie from Trustpower for being such great judges and Hope for her illustrations and judging.

Jessica, Lea, and Yun for taking part in our Mascot competition.

Thank you to our sponsors and friends…

A final thanks to our supportive sponsors who continue to share our vision to create the best STEM Festival in the world!