Last week, our Technology team and a group of engineers were invited to attend a STEM day organised by ACS Foundation.  It was an excellent day of learning and enrichment. Experiences varied from binary coding to making solar lamps for PNG and coding Mindstorm robots.

Below are some comments by two of the students who participate in a STEM Workshop.

Henry Burton:

It was a phenomenal experience enriching our knowledge of eye-opening topics. We first learnt about binary code; an advanced computer coding language. We were hosted by WiseTech who taught us about basic binary with decoding and adding. After that, we were hosted by the Origin Foundation, an off-spring of Origin energy who provide electricity to cities and countries in poverty. During the activity we built a mobile solar light for children in Papuanew Guinea suffering from light poverty. Finally we visited the UTS workshop for Robotics where coded LEGO mindstorms. We were tasked to code the mindstorms around a grid and collect as many items as possilbe on our mission.

Tiernan: 

A “one of a kind” experience, with loads of interesting knowledge to learn. One of the outstanding topics we learnt about was the “binary code”, from WiseTech, where we learned a basic knowledge of binary code and how it contributes to storing technology and transmitting info. on a device, such as iPads, iPhones, laptops etc. Next we learned from Origin Foundation about Origin energy, they taught us about how some countries/towns suffer from electricity poverty, and how they build mobile solar light to provide with the people who are suffering from electricity poverty. We built our own mobile solar light and got to send it with a message to the people in Papua New Guinea who suffer from electricity poverty. Finally we learnt about coding from the UTS workshop and got to code in teams a robot, so it collects interesting stuff and returns back to safety at “end.” All and all the day was quite amazing and we learnt a lot of interesting information that we can use in our future lives.

Below is a link to a video of the students engaging in these activities for your enjoyment.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/179wBxlWE6bnKv7kUEpMbxHg4krIJCmgp/view?usp=sharing

The students received very positive feedback for the gratitude and excellent behaviours they displayed in each session.

Lastly, a big thank you to the wonderful group of parents who weathered the torrential downpours to escort the children to and from the event. 

Mrs Martina Petersen and Mrs Susan Russell