What's going on in 

STEM?

Year 10 Design Engineering Academy Excursion

On Friday the 18th of August, 6 students from the Year 10 Design Engineering Academy caught a train to Melbourne central to represent the DEA cohort along with 18 other students from 3 other schools who got the golden opportunity to go to Arcadis, a renowned international engineering corporation. 

Arcadis is a world leading engineering company with over 36,000 people in over 70 countries with the goal to improve quality of life. Our emotions changed quickly upon the entering of the building. Arcadis’s office looked spectacular. The building design and architecture as well as the inner furnishing looked rich but relaxing to the eye. The vibe and mood given throughout the whole building was perfect for an office setting. 

To start off the day we were all welcomed with a warm smile by all the employees and were guided to the ‘screening room’ where we were given a quick introduction by 2 lovely ladies, Rachel and Anusha. After talking about the company and a bit about themselves, they introduced a technology that we’ve never encountered: the 360 degree camera. 

Shortly after, we were split into 6 different groups to mingle with the other schools. Using the technology of the 360 camera, an activity was set out. Each group got 12 questions with the answers being women that significantly changed the world. 4 participants, including Muheyra, went to a room filled with the answers and recorded it with the 360 camera. With this view, we were able to attempt to answer the given questions. Surprisingly, only one group got all the answers right. 

After morning tea, the groups were given another challenge. We had to design and create a floating “house” like structure that would hold marbles, using the design process, thinking about the realistic version in Columbia. 

The first step of this mini project was the ideate phase where we had to generate ideas of what our infrastructure would look like as well as listing down the materials that would be required. Each group got a budget of $60 dollars to use for resources. After the timer was up, it was time to start building! There was a lot of trial and error as well as popped balloons that occurred. Although ONE TEAM (ahem ahem Ira’s) went way over budget, all groups were able to produce a working prototype. Congrats to Govika’s team who won with 185+ marbles. The potential runners up team that was able to hold 155 marbles sadly didn’t know that the house had to be floating and made their “house” on stilts. Other than that they did really well!! The other teams also did supremely well and we were all able to learn something new from this experience. Congratulations to Zeel for getting recognised for her hard work and effort by the organisers. After that, there was a lot of time to ask questions to the mentors that were with us.     

Sadly it was time to depart and say our goodbyes. The journey back was peaceful and relaxing, but also still lively. And although we had to walk all the way back to school even though school had ended, we all still enjoyed our day and had a memorable experience. 

We express our special appreciation to Mr. Daffy, who was put on this excursion on such short notice and capably looked after us during the journey to our destination even though he got trapped on the other side of the station with no Myki balance, and didn’t take us to buy bubble tea. Also, a special thanks to Ms Bowles who was able to make this new experience reality.

To make it more memorable we got the 4 remaining students to write a bit about their experience.

"The experience that day went really well and promoting women in STEAM, with all the challenges and looking at the famous women was all very interesting. Being able to collaborate with other schools and participate in activities was amazing and competitive. Overall I really enjoyed the day and also learned many things." 

-Zeel

"It was an insightful experience to work with the amazing women and the food was good too." 

- Zainab

"The experience of everything was amazing and it showed me a different perspective of the stream. At first I was sceptical of it due it it being a pathway I did not know about that much, now that I have the information I believe I know what to do"

-Muheyra

"It was a very enjoyable experience and I personally loved talking to students from other schools" 

-Krithiga

Ira (10D) & Govika (10H)

10DEA 

Swinburne KIOSC Science Communication Conference

On Friday the 18th of August the Dandenong High School Horizon Hydrogen Grand Prix team were invited to give a key note address at the Swinburne KIOSC Science Communication Conference. They were also asked to be guest judges for the day.

The students spent the day listening to scientific presentations from student teams from schools across the region. They were then asked to award a prize for the most innovative scientific investigation.

Before the awards, the students gave a their key note address to the other schools and industry partners. The students reflected on the incredible journey that they had been on as part of the Hydrogen Grand Prix team and shared their key learnings. They did a wonderful job as a team.

We are excited to announce that we will be supporting two teams for the 2024 competition, with the current team members becoming the team leaders of the two new teams. We will be inviting students to apply for this amazing program very shortly.

Ms Bowles

STEM Leader