STEAM Education
Wearable Technology Fashion Show
In the past two weeks, students from years 3 to 6 were invited to attend two sessions to learn about ‘wearable technology in the fashion world’. Gabriela Raducan, Academic and Senior Research Fellow at La Trobe University and the event organiser of a ‘Global Wearable Technology Fashion Show’, ran these sessions. Gabriela is also one of St James’ CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools partners. At the completion of the sessions, Gabriela invited our students to attend a series of free workshops to create our own wearable technology designs.
Mr Mac is thinking about ‘souping up’ his Julius Marlows with some gnarly LEDs
40 students have decided to take the plunge and will be attending workshops with the Latrobe team, beginning Monday next week (5th of August). The project will see our students create designs where they sew LED lights onto garments of their choice (dresses, shoes, hats, beanies, t-shirts, skirts, pants, shorts, etc) using conductive thread. This is a meticulous activity and it is fantastic to see nearly a fifth of the students in our school take on the challenge.
Some ideas so far...
Emma (Grade 6): LED lights on her graduation dress
Keeley (Year 3): A hat/beanie that lights up when doing gigs
Billie & Leyla (Year 5): Making existing dresses look even more stunning
Latrobe lecturers and honours students (from a variety of fields) will support our students, walking us through everything that is required for success, including supplying us with all the resources required for free. We are extremely grateful for their support and expertise. At present we also have three parents expressing interest to support the students throughout the project and Mr Mac will be in attendance at every session.
The project will culminate in the opportunity for our students to participate in the ‘Global Wearable Technology Fashion Show’ at Latrobe University, Bundoora on Sunday 6th of October. We’ve been invited to register for the show - which is simply amazing! We might see some of our boys and girls (and maybe even teachers and parents) strutting their stuff down the catwalk. Stay tuned!
Here are some photos of some designs and potential dresses a couple of our students are considering altering with wearable technology. Thanks to Leyla, Olivia P and Billie for sharing these.
Tech4Future - Wearable Technology Fashion Show (Official Website)
http://tech4future.com.au/mystique.html
St James STEM Expo
(Wed 28th - Fri 30th of August)
At the end of August, St James Primary School will be hosting a three day STEM Expo. The Expo is being designed specifically for our school community and most especially for our students. It will see our students having the opportunity to attend STEM workshops that feature products and devices handpicked by our teachers, presented in a lesson format by iWorld’s Chad Declase and his team. The Expo would also see students, teachers and parents having the chance to simply ‘play’ with products and discovering their creative potential. The structure of the Expo is still being finalised but will feature ‘open sessions’ after school and lunchtimes where students and parents can experience the expo together.
Guests from industry and educational settings will be invited to attend at various stages over the three days. These might include principals, teachers, students from other schools or even kindergarten children.
Our school’s ICT Managed Services, ‘Centorrino Technology’ (CT) is officially hosting the event. One of their major event organisers, Wendy Lam will be leading the charge. Wendy has visited the school on numerous occasions and has been in frequent contact with Mr Mac, and Chad Declase in the planning of the Expo.
‘iWorld’s’ Chad Declase (one of our long standing members of our parent body) will be running all the workshops with his team, supplying all devices and products and basically bringing a great deal of mojo to the event. In Chad, we are extremely fortunate to have one of Victoria’s, if not Australia’s leading lights in the STEM products industry in our school community. He truly ‘knows his stuff’ and has invested a great deal of time and commitment in knowing how this products link to the Australian Curriculum. He is at the cutting edge of STEM products worldwide. We are grateful of Chad’s generosity of time and spirit in being involved in this event.
A more detailed flier will appear in the next edition of the newsletter. Be sure to ‘Save the Dates’ and pencil in some time to come and participate in the St James STEM Expo. It truly will be a unique opportunity to see the world of STEM first hand and learn why STEM is one of the educational ‘buzz words’ of the present day. We look forward to seeing you there.
iWorld Website (Click link below)
https://www.iworldonline.com.au/
Centorrino Technology (Click link below)
Telstra Smart Farm
With the Building Project coming to its completion, St James has been continuing our discussions about the possibility of creating a ‘Telstra Smart Farm’ for our school community. A Telstra Smart Farm is a hardware service that enables people to remotely monitor their farm operations, helping them report on key assets across their property by utlising sensor technology.
At present, St James doesn’t have a garden or farm as such. We have the opportunity, with the support of Telstra, to create a garden or farm that can be monitored by sensors. What shape, size, location and make-up of the garden/farm is yet to be decided but we are extremely keen to see if technology can play a key role in whatever garden we might decide upon. Any garden or farm we create would relate back to trying to provide opportunities for our students to have ‘hands on’ experiences. This would include all aspects of an entire project from planning, to planting, to monitoring, to potentially picking, eating or even selling any produce. A lot to be discussed.
For the past few years, our senior school students and teachers have been fortunate enough to have worked with Ross Heron from Telstra (National Commercial Projects - Enterprise Business and Government, Wireless Access & Network Engineering). Ross came to us as part of the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools Program. This is a program that matches industry professionals with schools. Ross has a passion for science and has introduced our students to physics, chemistry, earth science, circuitry and robotics among many fields and concepts of science. Ross orchestrated the ‘Telstra Drone’ day last year which our entire school attended. This was an experience all present won’t easily forget.
Ross Heron (Telstra) in full flight on Drone Day (22nd August, 2018)
The discussions with Telstra centre around how a Smart Farm might be a fantastic STEM project the school might take on so our entire community can learn more about the world of IoT (Internet of Things) and how sensor technology works in a ‘real-life setting’. Sensors in the Smart Farm would include a weather station sensor, a rain gauge sensor and a water tank volume sensor. Students and other interested community members would be able to remotely monitor these sensors with their own personal devices at home or school. Fancy being able to know the exact temperature of 6 St James Close at any given time? Very cool, huh!
Stay tuned for more updates as our discussions continue...
Telstra Smart Farm (Official Webpage)
https://accessories.telstra.com.au/smart-farm
Here are some pictures of some Smart Farm sensors that would form part of our garden/farm.
James McMahon
STEM Leader