Catherine McAuley STEM Team Wins Sustainability Award At The STEM MAD National Showcase

Year 9 students from Team Cup Crunchers who has won the STEM in Sustainability Award at the 2025 STEM MAD National Showcase.

Year 9 students demonstrate ‘Strive For Higher Things’ as they represent the school at the STEM MAD National Showcase and win 1st place for sustainability.

Catherine McAuley Westmead has won the STEM in Sustainability Award at the 2025 STEM MAD National Showcase. This showcase is a celebration of excellence in Catholic education, in which the nation's best primary and secondary student teams, nominated by their dioceses, showcase their outstanding STEM projects. The event this year saw over 100 schools across two showcase sessions compete.

Held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on the 17th and 18th November, the Catherine McAuley Team, ‘Team Cup Crunchers’, were chosen to represent the Parramatta Diocese after being awarded Highly Commended at the STEM MAD Parramatta Diocesan event. The innovative product the Year 9 team of students invented is a biodegradable and ingestible cup for drinking. Designed for use by people in distress, the cup can be eaten as a way to provide not only a vessel for drinking but also a nutritious food source, as the cup contains essential vitamins and minerals.

The Cup Crunchers display at STEM MAD.

Kinjal K., from Team Cup Crunchers, said she loved being part of STEM MAD Nationals as it “is the kind of event where all our curious minds can get together and innovate for the future. Through our involvement with STEM MAD we have learnt that there is a whole world just waiting for us and we can make a difference through our contributions.”

Manasvi C., another of the Team Cup Crunchers team members, said that the team settled on designing an edible plastic cup made from agar agar and sodium benzoate as a way to both stop plastic cups ending up in oceans or landfills and as a practical solution for communities facing humanitarian challenges.

Manasvi said that the initial design process was a challenging one with their original idea of an edible plastic bottle not working out. “We wanted to make an edible plastic bottle from potato starch and glycerin but after weeks of testing, researching bioplastics, learning about food safety and tasting the product we realised we had developed a sour, vinegar like flavour which set too slowly and had a flimsy texture! We determined this was not practical for real-world use so shifted our focus to developing an edible and biodegradable cup instead.”

Ms L. Nagawkar and Ms T. Hartman with students outside the Adelaide Convention Centre.

This entire process has taught me that successful innovation comes from trial, error and adaptation.

Manasvi

In addition to the showcase displays the students who attended STEM MAD also had the opportunity to immerse themselves in learning, collaboration and a celebration of STEM as they took part in workshops and connected with students from other dioceses.

Ms T. Hartman, Teacher Librarian and L. Nagawkar, STEM Mentor, said that the students proudly represented the school at this event. “Their effort, creativity and professionalism throughout the STEM MAD journey reflected the values of the school community and highlighted the powerful impact young people can make when they design with purpose”, both Ms T. Hartman and Ms L. Nagawkar said.