STEAM News
Melbourne Girls' College
GROK CyberComp
Two classes from Year 7 recently took part in the GROK learning CyberComp as part of their Connected World classes. Students had to complete a number of modules in a short timeframe. These modules examined password security, hacking, social media use and staying safe online. Congratulations t the following students who received a distinction certificate.
Cora Peutherer
Laura Chick
Leia Adrian
Saskia Crumpler-Whan
Hannika Andipatin
Ines Kahil
Julia Poppe
Maia Fornello
Rania Courtney
Sadie Smith
TechGirls 2023
The closing date for entries to the TechGirls competition was the 28th July and both of our teams put in amazing entries.
Team: Raspberry Cheesecake – Elise Ho, Vivien Dang, Maggie Fleming, Giselle Scott, Sarah Fox
App: Oasis
Description: In 2023, 81% of the 154 students who were surveyed by Melbourne Girls’ College stated that they felt the number of assignments they were given negatively impacted their mental health. To combat this issue, Oasis, an app centred around timetabling and education, helps students break down their large workloads and distributes it across the course of multiple days in order to split their schoolwork into ‘bite size pieces’. Aimed towards high school students within the age range of 12 to 18, Oasis builds off of the student’s self-determined capabilities in order complete their assigned work within a designated time bracket.
Team: Team Pancakes – Leia Adrian, Eve Howie, Marina Radicic, Vianna Law
App: Building Bridges
Description: 1 in 5 Australian children experience racism in their lives. Racism leads to poor mental and physical health and a lack of self-confidence and worth. Our app is designed to abolish racist stereotypes and therefore lower the number of children who experience racism. It is also designed to complement the education received in school and go beyond. The app is designed to teach kids in a fun and engaging way so more people download it and enjoy it, spreading the word about abolishing stereotypes.
Each team worked with mentors from the tech industry. Good luck to our teams in the final judging.
Union Station Site Visit
On the 1st August, we visited the construction works at Union Station to hear about the process to create one giant, below road-level train station and remove level crossings and two train stations. The scope of the works was staggering and involved 93 days of 24 hour a day construction. We heard that the onsite buildings were constructed in South Australia and craned in to speed up the build time. It was fascinating to hear how it all came together. Works continue on landscaping, road surfacing and carparking. Thanks to Georgia at Laing O’Rourke for being our tour guide.
National Computer Science School
he National Computer Science School (NCSS) is a ten-day summer school for students going into years 11 and 12. NCSS brings together talented young people from around Australia for an intensive course of computer programming and website development at university.
NCSS has been offered in various formats since 1996 and in 2024, we will be running concurrently at the University of Melbourne and at the University of NSW (UNSW).
NCSS is organised by Grok Academy together with our host universities. The school is completely residential, with all students staying with NCSS staff in full-board accommodation provided on campus.
The cost of NCSS is heavily subsidised by our sponsors, allowing us to make the cost per student $500* in 2024 (not including travel).
Click HERE if you would like to apply or HERE if you would like to read more.
We need YOU!
STEMgc is our newly created FIRST Robotics Competition Team. We need more members and community support to grow and improve.
We need students who could manage social media, finances, promotions, organisation as well as technical skills such as 3D drawing, coding and engineering. Parents – do you have robotics, engineering, CAD design or coding skills that we could call on? Maybe access to machinery that might help us. This is what we are trying to build as our next project. Watch the video of it in action HERE
