Challenge Week 1:

Welcome to your first weekly challenge! This week, make your choice of which challenge you would like to complete:

1. Lichenometry challenge

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Lichens are located on every continent on earth, in every climate and altitude. They only require an undisturbed surface, time, and clean air. Lichens get the nutrients they need to survive from the air and are very sensitive to air pollution.

Measuring the diameters of lichens growing on a surface is called lichenometry and can be used as a method of estimating the age of a rock or other surface. Lichens often have a regular but very slow growth rate of less than a millimetre per year. You will need to research lichens in your area and their estimated growth rate.

Here is your challenge

1. Find a Lichen growing on a rock. Measure the diameter of the lichen using a piece of string and a ruler, or by tracing the shape of the lichen onto paper and then measuring your tracing.
2. The diameter of the largest lichen thallus growing on a rock, is proportional to the length of time that the surface has been exposed to the elements.
3. Include the type, diameter and estimated age of the lichen in your photo caption.

or

2. Plastic redesign challenge

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Plastic does not decompose. While it can be recycled, all plastic that has ever been produced is still present in the environment in one form or another.

Products are often designed with a few parameters in mind – price, materials, and availability. Plastic is cheap, versatile, hygienic, lightweight, flexible and highly durable. Due to its availability and cost, plastic is often used to create many products, where another material could be used instead.

Here is your challenge

1. Take a product that is currently made of plastic and redesign it to use 50% less plastic components.
2. Draw and plan the product redesign, and cost the difference using a different material compared to plastic.
3. Try to keep the costs as similar or low as possible to make your design more appealing from a manufacturing perspective. Include your cost breakdown in your photo caption.

What to submit

1. Post your photo to Instagram and tag @ScienceANU (not #hashtag).Note: make sure to turn off your “Private account” setting on Instagram before posting your submission and tag us. You can turn it back on soon after you receive our confirmation. If you don't have Instagram or would prefer to email us, then just email your photo and caption to science@anu.edu.au.
2. The week one challenge submission closes on 11.59pm on Sunday 9^th October AEDT. You only need to submit one challenge, but you are welcome to submit both.
3. Submissions will be judged based on the following criteria:
   1. Lichenometry: type identified, diameter measured, age estimated. 
   2. Plastic Redesign: creativity, the complexity of product chosen, cost, plastic reduction, originality. 

The winner will be announced on Monday 10^th October. More than one winner may be selected. The winning entry will be posted to our Facebook, Instagram and on the website. The winner will be notified by email. Other submissions may be included in an Instagram story, if you don't want your photo included, please let us know when you submit it.

Challenge Week 2:

1. Edible solar system challenge

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solar system

The Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. This week, your challenge is to build a scale model of the solar system, out of food.

Here is your challenge

• Research the planets and sun to find their size. Calculate the scale of each planet in relation to the sun.
• Using any food you like, create a scale model of the solar system.
• Some ideas are different fruits, baking cookies to the different sizes (take into account expansion!), sandwiches cut into circles, seasonal vegetables or even a cheese platter. **Hint: choose foods you enjoy eating so after you finish your solar system, you can enjoy eating it, and it won’t go to waste.**
• Take of a photo of your edible creation.

2. Heart beats challenge

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heart beats

Does your heart rate change when you hear your favourite song? Does calming music really calm you down? This week, we hope you can find out.

Here is your challenge

• Sit down and rest for a few minutes. To get your resting heart rate, check your pulse (either on your wrist or your neck) and count the number of times your heart beats in 15 seconds. Multiply this number by four to calculate your beats per minute. Write it down.
• Listen to 10 minutes of your favourite songs, at the end of 10 minutes test your heart rate again and write it down. Repeat with 10 minutes of classical or calming music, 10 minutes of rock or heavy metal, and finally 10 minutes of pop music. Compare your results and see if the types of music had any change on your heart rate.
• Take a photo of you with your results sheet. In the caption, let us know which type of music resulted in the highest and lowest heart rate compared to your resting heart rate. 

What to submit

1. Post your photo to Instagram and tag @ScienceANU (not #hashtag). Note: make sure to turn off your “Private account” setting on Instagram before posting your submission and tag us. You can turn it back on soon after you receive our confirmation. If you don't have Instagram or would prefer to email us, then just email your photo and caption to science@anu.edu.au.
2. The challenge submission closes on 11.59pm on Sunday 16^th October AEDT. You only need to submit one challenge, but you are welcome to submit both.
3. Submissions will be judged based on the following criteria:
   1. Edible solar system: creativity, edibility and size accuracy. 
   2. Heart beats: include lowest heart rate, highest heart rate, resting heart rate and which music if any had the biggest impact on your heart rate.

The winner will be announced on Monday 17^th October. More than one winner may be selected. The winning entry will be posted to our Facebook, Instagram and on the website. The winner will be notified by email. Other submissions may be included in an Instagram story, if you don't want your photo included, please let us know when you submit it.

Challenge Week 3:

1. Modular Paper Folding Challenge

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modular paper folding

A cube has 12 edges, 6 faces, and 8 vertices. The volume of a cube is obtained by multiplying its side three times. The angles between any two faces or surfaces are 90°.
For this challenge, cubes can also be joined together to make a circle, or another shape if you’re feeling creative.

Materials

Paper squares (each cube will use 12 paper squares).
To make a cube ring, we recommend using 144 paper squares to make a 12 cube ring. 10cm x 10cm is a great size to start with, but feel free to use whatever size you like.

Here is your challenge

1. Watch a video on making a paper window cube ring, or another modular origami shape.
2. Get folding! 
3. Take a photo of you holding your creation. If you don’t want to keep your paper cube ring after you have taken a photo, please recycle it!

Or

2. Carbon Footprint Challenge

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Carbon footprint challenge

According to the Carbon Majors Report, just 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
While companies are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions, as individuals, we can still make changes that can benefit the world. The average Australian household has an annual carbon footprint of approximately 15-20 tCO2e. According to the UN, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050 we must limit our per-person emissions to 2 tCO2e per year.
This week, your challenge is to map and reduce your family’s carbon footprint.

Here is your challenge

1. Map your family’s carbon footprint using an online calculator. You can choose to calculate based on a year, 3 months or one month of data.
2. Write down the carbon footprint.
3. Do some online research and come up with a list of 5-10 things you and your family can do to reduce your carbon footprint.
4. Redo the calculations with those changes in mind and see the difference the changes can make.
5. Take a photo of you doing one of the actions to reduce your footprint. In the caption, let us know some other action you could take.

What to submit

1. Post your photo or video to Instagram and tag @ScienceANU (not #hashtag). Note: make sure to turn off your “Private account” setting on Instagram before posting your submission and tag us. You can turn it back on soon after you receive our confirmation. If you don't have Instagram or would prefer to email us, then just email your photo and caption to science@anu.edu.au.
2. The challenge submission closes on 11.59pm on Sunday 23^th October of your local time. You only need to submit one challenge, but you are welcome to submit both.
3. Submissions will be judged based on the following criteria:
   1. Modular paper folding: creativity, size and number of modules. 
   2. Carbon footprint: calculating footprint, list of reductions, the practicality of reductions. 

The winner will be announced on Monday 24^th October. More than one winner may be selected. The winning entry will be posted to our Facebook, Instagram and on the website. The winner will be notified by email. Other submissions may be included in an Instagram story, if you don't want your photo included, please let us know when you submit it.

Challenge Week 4

1. Pasta bridge/tower challenge

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Pasta bridge/tower challenge

Pasta is a staple food in many cultures and diets. In this challenge it can also be used as a building material.

Materials

• Pasta of any kind
• Glue of any kind

Here is your challenge

1. Make a bridge out of dry pasta and glue that bridges a 40cm gap, and can hold the weight of 1kg.
2. Take a photo of you with your creation bridging the gap, supporting at least 1 kg of weight.

OR

1. Using dry pasta and glue, make a tower taller than 1m that can stand up unsupported.
2. Take a photo of you with your tower creation.

2. Food label challenge

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Food Label Challenge

Sugars are carbohydrates that occur naturally in many foods but are also added as ingredients to foods. Like most carbohydrates they are used by the body for energy. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that sugars make up no more than 10% of daily kilojoule intake to prevent unhealthy weight gain and dental caries. For an adult of a healthy body mass index (BMI), this amount works out to about 12 teaspoons (or 50 grams) of sugar per day.
Sodium is a commonly occurring element. While most of the sodium in our food comes from salt, sodium is found naturally in virtually all foods that we eat, even when they don’t have added salt. The Australian and New Zealand governments recommend adults eat around 2,000 mg of sodium per day (equivalent to about 5,000 mg or 5 g of salt or 1 teaspoon). 

Here is your challenge

1. Find 5 packaged foods with more than 20g of sugar per serve. 
2. Find 5 packaged foods with less than 5mg of sodium per serve.
3. Find 2 packaged foods with no dietary information label
4. Take a photo of you with your 12 packaged foods. In your caption, include which food was the highest in sugar, and the lowest in sodium per serve. Were you surprised by these foods?

3. Bromine challenge

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Bromine Challenge

Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the only non-metal element to exist in liquid form at room temperature. There are 2 parts to this challenge.

Here is your challenge

1. Find 3 things around your home that contain bromine. You may need to do some research to find out which items contain bromine.
2. Here are the chemical formulae of six compounds that include bromine: cyanogen bromide (BrCN),  bromine trifluoride (BrF3), Potassium bromide (KBr), bromic acid (HOBrO2), Silver bromide (AgBr) and Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA). You could also choose an organobromine compound, found in sea weed and sea snail shells.
3. Choose one of these compounds and Google it to learn about its 3D structure.
4. Once you have researched your molecule, use materials that you can find at home to make a 3D model of it (As examples, you could use marshmallows and toothpicks, or flowers with their stems poked into a tomato – see how inventive you can be!)   
5. Take a photo of you with your 3 items containing bromine, and your molecular structure. In your caption please also tell us the formula of the molecule and what kind of 3D structure it has (For example, O3 (Ozone) is a trigonal planar molecule, for help with identifying molecule structure check out this link).

What to submit

1. Post your photo to Instagram and tag @ScienceANU (not #hashtag). Note: make sure to turn off your “Private account” setting on Instagram before posting your submission and tag us. You can turn it back on soon after you receive our confirmation. If you don't have Instagram or would prefer to email us, then just email your photo and caption to science@anu.edu.au.
2. The challenge submission closes on 11.59pm on Sunday 30^th October of your local time. You only need to submit one challenge, but you are welcome to submit both.
3. Submissions will be judged based on the following criteria:
   1. Pasta bridge/tower: creativity, size and strength. 
   2. Food label: correct number of items, variety, creativity
   3. Bromine: creativity, items found, accuracy.

The winner will be announced on Monday 31st October. More than one winner may be selected. The winning entry will be posted to our Facebook, Instagram and on the website. The winner will be notified by email. Other submissions may be included in an Instagram story, if you don't want your photo included, please let us know when you submit it.