For two weeks over the spring school holidays, 190 female students from 97 schools across Sydney flexed their technical design, computer science and animation skills in the Women in Engineering and IT (WiEIT) Holiday Tinker Workshops.
Students, from ages 8–18, were invited to look into study and career options within engineering and IT, in an effort to boost aspirations to build up future women leaders in STEM – part of a comprehensive approach by UTS to overcome decades of inequality.
The 12 workshops ran over three days, taking students through engineering’s practical applications in everyday settings, and exploring the many different ways that students can use their skills at UTS. This included hands-on experience with drones, Unity game design software, and the ins and outs of cyber security features taught at UTS. Students also got to experience tours of UTS’s ProtoSpace … and took home their own UTS Tower.
School students in the UTS ProtoSpace. Credit: Lucia Bautista.
The program was a hit among students and parents alike, with students reporting back to feedback that the day brought them closer to other participating students, and over 90 per cent of attending students reporting that they would like to come to university when they graduate.
One Year 9 student stated that ‘I learnt that engineering is not just construction but meeting people's needs.’
Meeting needs was top of the list for this year’s Holiday Tinkerers – in one workshop, primary school students solved an everyday issue by designing and producing an app, learning coding as well as design principles.
Everyday challenges covered teaching grandparents how to use a smartphone, finding lost pets and donating water to drought-stricken farmers in western NSW. And lessons covered not only problem-solving, but production and marketing approaches.
School students working on game design.
‘Both the girls have been busy working on their APS (Animal Protection Services) app ever since, and [one of their] comments to me was that she is definitely going to university and that she didn’t realise just how much fun my job in IT was,’ said one parent.
‘She was so proud of her coding and amazed when I showed her all the source code in behind her app.’
Fostering interest in science and technology has always been part UTS’s DNA. With the increased focus on the role of STEM careers in the 21st century, outreach to the next generation of future leaders in STEM is more important than ever.