Whittlesea Tech School

By Alexander Najdovski and Ava Lastic

Whittlesea tech is a selective student accelerator program that is made to encourage our creativity and problem-solving skills. Whittlesea tech offers new technology and a place for us to run free with our ideas and practise on making things happen, since they have everything we need and answers to our questions. We get to meet other kids that are ready for extension, like us and collaborate to create new projects and learn skills from each other. We both have made lots of new friends within the group and enjoy talking to kids with different ideas and perspectives.

At Whittlesea Tech students from various schools are provided with tech such as 3D printers, laser cutters, modelling programs and more for free, this allows students to experiment with technology they previously wouldn’t have access to because of pricing and availability. Most students will experience issues within the time of creating their project, in coding or building technology and with the guidance of the whittlesea tech staff students are able to  practise overcoming these issues and obstacles. This changes what we bring to Edgars Creek Secondary College since we can use collaborative skills to ECSC as we build relationships with students from different school experiences. We can also bring new found educational knowledge about programming, electrical circuits, modelling and more to both ECSC and our future careers. 

We are currently working on interactive displays to set at Whittlesea Tech. 

Ava - "Im working on a simplified version of the game Dance Dance Revolution which consists of code that we’ve put together on a program named Scratch, a Makey Makey (the part that processes the circuit into a message, home-made springs, electrical paint and wire. The spring in between the top and bottom of the button (the red line shown in the diagram)  keeps the circuit open, which means it won’t send any signals to the computer. When the button is pressed down, the electrical paint and wire on the inside touch (connecting the green and blue lines), and the circuit becomes complete and a message is sent to our code (shown through the purple line) , which gives the player a point if pressed at the right time".

Alex - "I'm working on an endless space shooter video game, paired with a 3d printed controller with custom electrical internals. The Retro game is a replica of Galaga mixed with Asteroids with a few twists, there are 2 separate attacks, a shock wave and 2 small bullets, the game consists of endlessly destroying random sized asteroids and the more you destroy the higher chance an alien will come and attack you. The program we have used is called Make code arcade".