STEM MAD

On Wednesday 17 April the STEM Room was a hive of STEM activity with the launch of our STEM MAD (Science Technology Engineering and Maths: Make a Difference) challenge for 2024.  We are delighted this year to have two Year 9 teams assisting with our Year 7 and 8 teams. These teams will not only enter the competition but also mentor our junior teams. After all, they have a wealth of experience in STEM MAD now!

The day started off with a variety of challenges designed to teach engineering concepts from straw challenges to building a prosthetic hand.  Next up, students were challenged to design a chair that could be flat packed and used in emergencies. Students prototyped and built their chairs using cardboard and Ms Ward very kindly tested them for us. We are happy to report no Assistant Principals were harmed in the testing of the chairs with every chair holding strong! Students then used the skills they had developed in the chair challenge to build a portable bed. We were very impressed with the quality and variety of engineering ideas that the students adopted and adapted with their creations!

The day ended with students brainstorming ideas for their own projects going forward using STEM that can make a difference in people’s lives. Currently students are working on building their prototypes to actuate their ideas. Stay tuned for further updates!

Student Reflection

For me participating in STEM MAD again was a no brainer. I have gained so much experience and fun out of the program, whilst expanding my relationships with people who think the same way as me. When I heard STEM MAD was back for another year I was overjoyed and immediately said I was interested in attending again.

My favourite part of the launch day this year was being able to mentor a younger group and really get to see their ‘cogs turning’ as we all worked through our model problems. I loved being able to see our group present their finished prototypes proudly.

My group is currently working on a prototype that aids people with food allergies, preferences or intolerances. We hope that our idea will be implemented into restaurants and eateries to ease the anxiety and difficulty around determining what an individual can and can’t eat. Our group hopes to present this idea as a website that is accessed via a barcode on the bottom of menus nationally, allowing a discreet and easily accessible solution.

Pratima Thomas
Year 9

Year 10

This term is all about Python for our Yr 10 PGW class.

So far, they’ve learned all about functions, variables, events, modules, conditionals and loops. Students have built a variety of applications from friendly password pickers to choose your own adventure games.

The last couple of weeks have seen our Year 10 students get very creative with two of the drawing modules in Python: the Turtle and The TKinter module. In Turtle, for example, students start with defining their own functions for drawing a rectangle or other shape, which they can then call throughout their program, thus creating artwork with these shapes.

Attached are some of their impressive, coded artwork!

Adrienne Donoghue
Learning Leader: Digital Technologies

Student Reflection

PGW has definitely been one of my favourite subjects I have done so far. This subject has given me so many opportunities to learn about different aspects of the digital technology field. In PGW, we get to learn how to create a website using HTML in Adobe Dreamweaver, code many different programs using Python and create our own video games which is still to come. Programming was my favourite because there were so many different things to create, and we could also work at our own pace. This subject allowed me to show my personality in the tasks we did, in fact, it was encouraged. For example, in every assessed task we have done so far, I have made them all Spider-Man-Themed. PGW is a subject I end up getting lost in and sometimes I forget how long I have actually been working on a project.  It is also very hands-on and set in a fun environment which makes the subject so much more enjoyable and engaging.

Jayda Vargheese
Year 10