This year the organising team wanted our talented STEM whānau to help us come up with a superhero mascot for STEMFest 2021 that solves an environmental problem using STEM superpowers.

Entries came in from young people across Tauranga and during the July school holidays we also hosted a special session at Basestation. Our young creatives were given an opportunity to design and explore the theme further with the guidance of Natalie, our STEMFest Ambassador, and Rebecca, our science teacher and long-time STEM friend.

We were blown away by the quality of the designs and concepts as well as all the considered thinking and planning around each entry. We had designs entries from STEM creatives as young as 7 years old to 12 years old!


Last Friday our judges met for the difficult task of picking the finalists. Our judging team consisted of Annie and Anne-Marie from Trustpower, our STEMFest Ambassador Natalie, our graphic designer Hope, and members of the STEMFest organising team.

Judging all the great entries has been so difficult as our designers all brought some amazing ideas and themes to their designs. Our judges took time to review all the entries, read all the wonderful descriptions and after A LOT of discussion we were (finally) able to select the top three. It wasn’t an easy task as all designs were great and we could clearly see all the thought and consideration that had been put into them.

We judged each design on the following criteria:

  • Was the design creative in execution?
  • Did the superhero use elements of STEM in its problem solving?
  • How well thought out was the concept and would it be relatable to other youngsters?

Based on the above, we are delighted to announce the top three finalists!

  1. Jessica
  2. Yun
  3. Lea

Big congratulations to Jessica, Yun, and Lea who will be invited as VIPs to a very special event on Thursday 12th August when the winner will be announced!

Adult helpers, please keep an eye out on our social media accounts as we share more updates for the mascot and STEMFest!

Stay curious!

Team STEMFest.