Run by the NSW Department of Education, the program challenges public school students to devise a way to eradicate a social or community problem using technology.

Of the six teams Sturt Public entered, all ended up in the semi-finals, and one finished in the grand finals.

"We had 30 students all up in teams of five," said classroom teacher Fiona Hawkins.

"Of the 12 teams that ended up in the regional semi-finals, six of them were ours [and] getting one team into the grand finals was like winning the Olympic gold medal. They did very well to get into the last seven of the state."

Sturt's grand final qualifying team, who called themselves 'GWAGH', created an app to be used in the management of extreme anger issues.

Reading the user's emotions, when anger peaks it emanates a calming controlled sound to keep the user from acting out.

"We couldn't really find much out there to do with anger [management]," said team member Giselle Millman, aged 11.

"We had other ideas but they would cost too much or would be much harder to work."

One idea involved building a purpose-specific watch while another idea focused on installing the same technology into a teddy bear.

"That was aimed at little children," explained 11-year-old Hansa Rathnayake.

"The watch would be much less subtle too."

The overall statewide winners were announced on Tuesday morning. Bossley Park High School won the senior division, while Maroubra Junction Public School snapped up the much-coveted junior prize.

Representing for the Riverina and surrounds, Young High School took out the people's choice in the senior section.

Waiting for the announcement was even more nerve-wracking than producing the prototype of their project, according to Giselle.

"I was a lot more nervous [waiting to find out] than when we were making [the program]," Giselle said.

When eventually the team heard that they had not qualified for the finals they were disappointed, but applauded their competition's superior efforts.

"The winners did a really good job designing theirs, and the people's choice was really good too," said Hansa.

With one year's competition now done, the teams have begun thinking through their options for next year's challenge, which will hopefully return to a face-to-face situation instead of this year's COVID-19 induced virtual event.

"I'll definitely be doing it again next year if I can," Giselle said.