Science
During the first week of the school holidays, Blackburn High School hosted and participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
Our team tried really hard as we navigated challenges, curveballs and donated all our time and boy was it worth it!
During the period of our robot building, we learnt how intricate and complex robots could be and how incredible they are as well.
Our team ranged from year 9’s to year 12’s and despite the vast age gap, we forged new friendships and grew together as a team, which ultimately helped us achieve such incredible feats.
During our first match, we were anxious, but we knew that even though we were a first-year team, there were other rookie teams in the competition too. Our robot unfortunately could not shoot but it could climb a ladder and that helped us remain in a secure position throughout the competition.
When the sirens blared signaling for robots to begin climbing, our driver who was controlling the robot went into position, a sense of uncertainty engulfed all of us as we waited to see if our robot could climb. When we finally got a successful climb, we started cheering and shouting as we could see our hard work and effort finally paid off.
We were so proud that despite our short time frame, and limited resources, we managed to walk away with an award. Holding the award high as everyone cheered was a moment we would never be able to forget, and we know that without the support from our team and teachers, we would never be able to achieve something this special. Thank you to all the teachers who donated their time and effort to make all of our dreams come true. This was such an incredible experience working with such amazing teammates and dedicated teachers.
From these experiences, I feel that we are more confident and mature and will strive to do even better next year as a more experienced team.
From the Robotics Team
Girls in Physics Day
On Friday the 22nd of July all the female students that study Physics attended the Girls in Physics Day at Melbourne University. The day was all around encouraging women to study physics at university. It was an inspiring day seeing all the ways physics can be used besides learning theory. It showed me that physics can intersect with many other areas like art, biology, medicine, and aid. My favourite session was learning about how physics is being used to help people in need. Our group talked to a foundation that helps build cheap machines that creates oxygen for poor countries. It presented a way physics could be used to help people instead of physics being for just academics. The main take away I had from that day was that there are so many aspects to physics that would be fascinating to explore.
Anna Thorne
AI Day
About forty students attended the Day of AI lessons on the 27th of July. The program was delivered by Miss Playfair from CS in Schools, Miss Love, Mr Butler and Mr Lam. Students learnt what AI was, used a Google drawing prediction program, they trained a neural network to predict images of dog vs cat, learnt about deepfakes and the GAN technology behind it, then finalised the day applying what they learnt about AI to think about how AI could be used to make their school better or society better.
Brian Lam
On the day we got to spend the day with people in our grade learning about AI and the up-and-coming technology associated with it. We got the opportunity to see website which can evolve when you feed it information and we even played Pictionary against a computer. One of the highlights of the amazing day was watching a clip of the live action Dora the explorer with Dwane the rock Johnson as a deep fake Dora. As well as the fascinating learning experience we also got to enjoy an awesome pizza lunch.
Charli Suidgeest
Day of AI was a very interesting day. All the knowledge I gained that day extends my ability to learn and to grow, as well as giving me very different options in life. I loved every moment of it. The way how AI learns and adapts to new information is amazing. Though a down part of it was the generator in real life activity. It was a bit confusing but overall fun. How deepfakes work and how dangerous they are extremely fascinating to learn about. As well as how self-driving cars are being built and the differences of being programmed and being able to adapt and learn was very interesting
Overall, it was a fun, informative and interesting experience.
Nevan Samadder
VCE Chemistry VSSEC Excursion
During the first two weeks of Term 3, Year 12 Chemistry students attended a medicinal chemistry program at the Victorian Space Science Education Centre (VSSEC). Students synthesised their own aspirin at school and tested it at VSSEC with a variety of spectroscopic techniques. They were glad to find that their aspirin was very pure!
This hands-on experience allowed students to understand how organic compounds are analysed in a laboratory/industrial setting. They all had a go at using the Infrared Spectrometer, the UV-Visible Spectrometer and the High Performance Liquid Chromatograph.
Engineering Design Competition - Robogals
Robogals is a global non-for-profit organisation whose mission is to inspire young women to take on engineering at a tertiary level. Every year they have a design competition to create the Logo that they will use on all of their merchandise for the year.
Miss Love is on the Board of Robogals and thought that there would be some talented Blackburn High School students who might want the opportunity to have their design used Globally for the organisation. Please consult with your parents before applying. The form has all the information and is how you apply.
This year’s prompt: All Engclusive.
All entries due by the 21st August.