The old record was marbles, but Niah’s floating structure held marbles before it sunk.
Niah created her floating structure at an EWB School Outreach activity held at the Indigenous Science Experience at the Redfern Community Centre. The event, hosted by the National Indigenous Science Education Program, Macquarie University, Inspiring Australia, Redfern Community Centre, and the City of Sydney, celebrated science in all its forms – both Indigenous and western. Stalls covered a wide variety of topics including robotics, stick insects, bush tea, medicines, tools, and weapons.
EWB Sydney Region hosted a stall demonstrating the Cambodian Floating Houses School Outreach module. The demonstration drew a very positive response; over people were engaged to learn about appropriate technology.
Participants were allocated a pretend money budget of $ to build a floating house out of supplied materials. Any person who could build a floating house that supported over marbles won a prize.
Maria Tran, a volunteer from EWB Sydney Region, commented, "It is amazing to see school children inspired by creating simple, low-cost, sustainable designs that have the power to have a positive impact upon society. Seeing Niah break the record with marbles really made the day, and hopefully inspired her and other participants to consider a future in humanitarian engineering."