01 Mar 2018
On Friday the 23rd of February a group of Year 8 Figtree High students had the opportunity to visit the Innovation Campus of UOW (The University of Wollongong), to participate in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Entrepreneurship day.
Throughout this day each group participated in two activities that would vary depending on your group, and got to listen to speeches that were both motivational and inspiring.
The first activity that we took part in taught us about high and low pressure air systems. The experiment that we were able to undertake during this lesson was creating our very own barometer out of recycled bottles, a balloon, rubber band and a paddle pop stick. This experiment allowed us to see if the surrounding air was in a high or low pressure system. This is what some of the other participants had to say-
Dina Salem: "It was really fun and exciting learning about what air pressure is".
Emily Rutledge: "The air pressure bottle barometer was very fascinating and very interesting".
(After the second activity, we went into a hall and listened to a presentation from a female Scientist talk to us about her journey. The important point from her speech was girls can be good at STEM jobs too.
The second activity we did was to learn about Sphero's. These little robotic spheres use an app which requires some coding to operate. We also learnt that in the future jobs won't need people and just need robots which are coded to do the job for them. We also got to have a little play around with the Sphero's making it go in every which direction by a controlling pad on the iPad. This is what other participants had to say-
Dina Salem: "I loved how we got to have a little play around with the sphero's and got to code them"
Ben Melrose: "It was fun to learn about robotics and what the future is going to be like."
This day was such a fun day to learn and participate in futuristic activities at the University of Wollongong.
This day was a great learning opportunity that we wish to be able to participate in again in the future.
Article written by: Mikaela Kokkin, Kassandra Persinidis, Caitlin Rodrigues and Mackenzie Thew
Please feel free to check out the photo album for more pictures captured on the day.