Paint mixing leads to career curiosity

FOR Katie Newton, making paint is an opportunity to see what a future in engineering might hold for her.

The student leader at Ballarat Tech School’s STEM academy was one of a few on Friday 22 May to experience industrial chemistry and engineering firsthand.

Fifty year 9 and 10 students from 12 secondary schools across the Ballarat region enjoyed a tailored experience from the tech school and Haymes Paint.

The students mixed base paint, tested performance and designed formulations, which are the same processes professional chemists and engineers use every day.

“I really enjoy these experiences because it just gives me more insights on the world, and what I can do when I’m older,” Newton said.

“For my future, I’m thinking about engineering.”

The year 10 student liked the subject because “everything is your own a lot of the time”.

“When you create an idea, or come up with an idea, you make it your own,” she said.

Haymes chief executive officer Rodney Walton was on hand to see the students in action.

He said it was wonderful to see them engage practical skills that could be applied while working in the region.

“This is a real-life example here,” he said. “They’re here actually making paint.

“We can see, being a family business investing back in Ballarat, people who will want to come and bring their skills and knowledge into our family business for the next generation.

“So we can all continue to see manufacturing prosper here in Ballarat.”

Kirstyn Hall, the tech school’s pathways and partnerships manager and the STEM academy coordinator, said the students had seen stuff they had not before.

The academy was a four-day program delivered across two terms in partnership with two local manufacturing partners in Haymes and Gekko.

“You can’t be what you can’t see, so let’s show them,” Hall said. “That’s what this program is about.”

She said the students themselves were an impressive bunch.

“They’re all interested, engaged, curious, getting to know each other,” she said. “They’re building a network.”