STEM challenge creates student designers

BALLARAT Tech School engaged 50 girls from Ballarat secondary schools in a STEM program last week, focussing on industrial design.

The program was a collaboration across two days, with industrial textile product manufacturer, Bartlett.

Students were given a tour of the factory before being tasked with creating a new household product out of PVC offcuts when they returned to the Tech School.

Bartlett’s Damian Muller said the project WAS simply about “design with waste.”

Students in small groups made a prototype of their ideas, finding an alternate use for PVC, and pitched them to local designers and Bartlett.

The groups were critiqued on their creativity and whether the product could be manufactured.

Mount Clear College’s Leela Sweet said PVC wasn’t an easy material to work with.

“There were challenges, but we got accustomed to it,” she said.

STEM is all about championing science, technology, engineering and maths in students’ studies, to enhance their learning, equip them with broad skills and nurture an interest in those developing industries.