STEAM News

FIRST Lego League

On Saturday 5th November, 7 excited Lego League teams came to Melbourne Girls’ College for a competition. Teams had practiced hard to master the robot design and performance. They had also designed an innovation project on sustainable energy usage in line with their years’ theme. Congratulations to the teams who are progressing to the next level of competition.

A huge thanks to the many MGC staff and students who helped on the day.

Work Experience in Engineering

Soph with some of the Laing O’Rourke team

Hi, my name is Sophia Camera, and I am a Year 11 student here at MGC.

I was lucky enough to be a part of the Inspiring Stem+ program with Laing O’Rourke. It was here I was introduced to James Tolar, a project engineer for the company. Through James I was able to secure the incredible opportunity of work experience with Laing O’Rourke. I was originally supposed to complete it in November of 2021, unfortunately, due to covid it was cancelled a few times. Happily, James made sure the program was reoffered and I completed it in these past holidays.

I had an amazing experience! I got to spend each day shadowing two different teams. I learnt the ways of the delivery, communications, sustainability, environmental engineering, digital engineering, civil engineering, commercial, quality and people. I went into the program interested most in learning the different roles within civil engineering not only did I gain this knowledge, but I was also enticed by the environmental engineers! During my week I shadowed the team working on the Suburban Rail loop project. I, like many other young people, had quite a narrow view on the many links in the chain of construction projects. I found the program gave a great overview of all the different roles and I learnt so much. For example, the project was still within the ‘initial and early works’, which I didn’t even know was a stage!

Overall, I am so grateful for this opportunity and the time I got to spend with their amazing team.

Inspiring STEM Program

We have wrapped up the Inspiring STEM+ program for 2022. We slipped in an extra module on Safety in Construction. During this module the girls learnt about how construction has dealt with safety over time before being introduced to Laing O’Rourke’s Next Gear philosophy. The students had races trying on all the necessary PPE gear. Thank you to Ryan Pledge and Steve Corrigan for taking the time to speak to the students about their journey into construction, widening their perspective of entry paths into our industry. Special shout out to Chloe Pittle for taking on leadership of the day. We look forward to 2023 where we can continue our STEM+ content and to welcome the students onto site for a walk.

Gender Equality in STEM

In a recent article in The Daily Telegraph in NSW, it was quoted that…

“The Youth in STEM survey showed 21 per cent of girls wanted a STEM career compared to 42 per cent of boys.”

Our goal here at MGC is to dramatically increase the percentage of students who are looking to a career in a STEM field. Victoria University has stated the future job demands to be in the following 10 fields

Healthcare.
Construction.
Education & Training.
App & Software Development.
Data analysis.
Cyber Security.
E-commerce.
Product Designer.

Some food for thought!

What about a career in drone flying?

Recently we were lucky enough to attend a Spatial Discovery Session as part of the Surveying and Spatial Industries conference. We heard from several women who work in the drone flying area – in surveillance, conservation, and emergency management. Then we all learned how to fly a small drone and code it to follow a path – simulating what it would be like to watch over Melbourne for signs of flood damage.

We then visited the exhibition space of the conference and saw how surveyors use extremely complicated equipment to take precise measurements.

Thanks to Jules Blundell for organising everything.

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