Girls in STEM

Tuesday the 21st of March was the first day of Girls In STEM, held at the Ballarat Tech School. On the first day, Miss Blackburn caught the train in to Ballarat with Jolie and Myka and once there, we received our name badges and headed off to listen to the introduction. Throughout the day we learnt to use laser cutters and virtual reality. We also learnt different methods of problem solving and about AR (Augmented Reality). That night was the open night and some of the students were required to speak about what they had learned, so Emily chose to talk about the laser cutting. We had a fantastic first day!

On Wednesday, the second day, all the Beaufort students were there: Lily, Emily, Jolie and Myka. We had the opportunity to work with the people from Mars Wrigley, learning how to make prototypes in order to solve a problem they were having with the shape and size of their Maltesers. We had to make a machine that organised the Maltesers into different categories. For this we were split into groups of three, with the winning prototype earning the creators a golden ticket to take a tour of the factory. There were also two other prizes, one for most creative and one for people's choice; all students voted on the one they thought was the best. Emily’s group did an outstanding job, winning the People’s Choice Award. This was a great opportunity for us to test our skills and build on our problem solving abilities. We are all looking forward to going back there next term.