Four girls from Tauranga Intermediate are on their way to the USA after winning the national finals in Future Problem Solving.

The event, held in Auckland over the weekend, challenged them to find a solution to a future problem in the global workplace.

The problem this year was a working person struggling to find leisure time in the busy future. Teams had to come up with 16 unique solutions to the problem, before ranking their top eight, and finally narrowing down to the best one.

The girls settled on the idea of a virtual reality headset workers could wear during their breaks. The headset would alter the user's impression of time, letting them take a virtual two-week holiday in the space of half an hour.

Although the solutions could assume certain future technologies existed, the girls say they could not resort to ‘magic'. For example, during a different task earlier in the year they had tried teleportation as a solution, which was deemed too far-fetched to work.

The school sent two teams to the nationals this year, and the girls are thrilled to have won the trophy and the chance to represent New Zealand at the world champs in La Crosse, Wisconsin next June.

Between now and then they have another problem to solve – how to raise the $30,000 needed for their trip over. But the girls have a few ideas up their sleeves already, including car washes, raffles and sausage sizzles.

There's a bit of pressure on them – the school won the world champs back in 2001 – but the girls agree Future Problem Solving challenges their thinking, especially creativity, and they're looking forward to bringing home another trophy next year.