FINGAL Head Public School students have beaten six other schools to win the Tweed Coast's Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Challenge, or STEM.

More than 400 students, teachers and parents attended the STEM challenge at Kingscliff High School recently to test the distance of each mousetrap powered car, with the winning team creating a record distance of 18.5 metres with their vehicle.

Fingal Head Public School teacher Janelle Kirk said the children spent a lot of time working on their projects.

"The children loved every minute of their time spent on the task,” Ms Kirk said

"They researched, planned, argued, cooperated, tweaked their designs, problem-solved and compromised to achieve the end result, with creativity ever at the forefront, a particular passion at Fingal.”

Event coordinator and Kingscliff High School Head Teacher of Industrial Technology and Engineering Michael Connelly said all teams should be proud of their projects.

"We witnessed STEM-oriented, project-based learning at its best,” Mr Connelly said.

"The teams from all the coastal learning community schools did outstanding work on their vehicles, they should be very proud of their achievements.”

Students from Pottsville Beach, Bogangar, Kingscliff Primary, Fingal Head , Cudgen and Duranbah Public schools combined with pupils at Kingscliff High School to make up the 57 teams competing in the STEM challenge.

Mr Connelly said the event was a success thanks to the support of the school teachers who helped their students.