ConocoPhillips Science Experience

SWINBURNE

Six year nine students, including myself, had the incredible opportunity to attend the conocophilips science experience at Swinburne Hawthorn, along with 31 other Year 9 and 10s from across the state. The three day program consisted of many activities that covered a wide range of topics. Some of these included physics, chemistry, biology, technology, and robotics. If I talked about all of the activities, this would be a novel not an article, so I’ll just mention a couple of my favourites. On the first day, one of the workshops was attending a chemistry demonstration. Two lecturers presented a few cool experiments, that were really engaging but also educational. 

On the second day, we travelled to Swinburne Wantirna, where we completed a range of activities surrounding robotics. My favourite was when we got into pairs to have a go at programming. My partner and I had a great laugh by programming an mbot to play “all star” by smash mouth while charging after our instructors. My favourite part of the last day was by far the DNA workshop, where we were in a laboratory learning about forensic DNA testing. Coming a close second was cell imaging. We got to look at a mouse spine under the microscope and see different layers on the cell, identifying white and grey matter. 

We got to tour their ‘Factory of the Future’ where there were virtual reality machines, 3D printers, and robotic devices. We all got a go at controlling the robotic arm and exploring the VR tram.

To end off this day we attended a show on physics. The lecturer was a lot of fun and explained what he was doing while also making it engaging and having us on the edge of our seats.

I am so grateful that I got the amazing opportunity to attend this program, as I got to talk to professionals about future job opportunities in the fields of technology and science, got experience in a lab, and made loads of friends interested in the same things as me.

Teagan 9S

 The Conocophillips Science experience help on the Swinburne University campuses was an experience I sure won't forget. Multitudes of cool new friends with similar interests were made. Over the three days I learnt not only the different sciences but also how they were applied into the real world, usually we learn about formulas and why things happen the way they do but we were treated to cool demonstrations of how the sciences impact our lives and how they can be further implemented into daily appliances. We also did a lot of practical work from soldering motherboards to mixing DNA samples and taking readings from Spectrometers etc.. I certainly enjoyed the experience and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone else who's keen on science or just wants to witness something purely mind blowing.

Benjamin Ridd 9E

Peter Kos

Leader of Science and KIOSC

Wantirna College