STEM Entrepreneurs
STEM Entrepreneurs
During the second half of last year, our STEM Entrepreneurs team put their hands up for the challenge of designing and building a community project. The client for this project was Community Lifestyle Support, also known as CLS. CLS is an organisation that works to improve the lives of people living with a disability. They work directly with their clients to find solutions to everyday challenges that we often take for granted.
One of the projects CLS have developed, is an all-abilities garden that is exclusively made up of edible native plants. They have worked with the Taribelang Bunda to gain knowledge on which plants are local to Bundaberg and that have been used as a food source. They started adding exhibits to the garden, however due to various constraints, they have been very limited in what they could do. As a result, the work halted. This is where our Shalom STEM Entrepreneurs stepped up.
Their job was to design and develop an interactive exhibit that was accessible. Their designs included consideration of wheelchair access, large controllers for people with limited mobility as well as many other considerations. The students interviewed the clients, including discussions with an occupational therapist to make sure their designs were accessible to people with different abilities. They consulted with an electrical engineer to ensure their electrical components were suitable. They took notes, worked on a variety of ideas, and then returned to propose not 1 but 2 exhibits. They built the solutions and finally presented them to CLS.
It is worth emphasizing that this was a real-world project, for a real client. The students brought their individual skills from computer programming, to engineering, to artwork. They employed laser cutting, used hand tools, created digital artwork, painted artwork by hand, coded complex algorithms and connected the electronics for the joystick controllers and minicomputer. They coded games that relate to the garden to explain the plants in a way that is interactive and fun. They also built a puzzle board that includes fauna native to the local area.
To acknowledge their hard work, each member of the team was presented with the Shalom STEM Community Award. Please take the time to have a look at the video via the below link to see what was achieved by this impressive group.
Mr Steven Tucker
STEM Coordinator
steven_tucker@shalomcollege.com