Driving the uptake of new skills in manufacturing

Hi there. Sorry for the long break between posts. You may have read in previous posts about the F1inSchools project. It's a great project [read here about similar ones in previous posts] that encourages young people, usually school teams, to be involved in the design and manufacturing of model Formula One race cars. The cream on the cake is that at regional, state and national finals, the team also get to race the cars.

Recently, the Queensland finals were held at Bundaberg State High School. The Manager of the project Leanne Hixon, was closely involved in organising the event and ensuring a good turnout of schools at the finals which saw 84 students from 18 teams involved in the event. Leanne was so involved she helped designed and manufactured two cars that almost held their own in achieving fast racing times.

Leanne Hixon ready to put the cars under starter's orders

Congratulations to the Major winners:

• Overall Winner (highest points on the day): Attacca Subito from Pine Rivers State High School
• Professional Senior Class: Attacca Subito – Pine Rivers State High School
• Professional Junior Class: High Voltage Racing from Noosa District State High School
• Development Class: Southern Cross Racing from Noosa District State High School
• Cadet Class: Ace Racing – Mackay North State High School

The National Final will be held in Avalon Melbourne 27/28 Feb and 1 March in 2013 in conjunction with the Avalon Air Show with the following Queensland teams attending:

• Attacca Subito from Pine Rivers State High School
• High Voltage Racing from Noosa District State High School
• Southern Cross Racing from Noosa District State High School

Apastron from Mirani State High School and a collaboration team from Split Second Racing – St Patrick’s College Mackay and High Calibre Racing Mirani SHS’ received wild cards to attend the National Finals.

Stemming the flow - the reluctance of youth to pursue STEM careers

A Reuters article recently points to an ASQ Survey results stating that youth in the US are reluctant to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) for a number of reasons, perhaps the most disturbing of which is that too much work is involved.

There were 713 respondents surveyed from grades 6-12 who offered the following insights:

• STEM careers offer the most opportunities
• STEM degrees cost too much
• their grades aren't good enough
• too much work is involved
• teachers aren't preparing students well enough for STEM careers (with girls feeling underprepared x4)

I'm not sure if these results for US students translate to the rest of the world, but let us assume they do. So there is a major paradox present here. There is recognition of the opportunities offered by STEM-related careers, but (leaving cost aside) students feel underprepared, disinclined or insecure about pursuing these careers.

Of course, it is probable that a section of those surveyed have not been aligned to STEM careers no matter what the circumstance. However, what seems to be lacking is a passion and drive for STEM careers and visibility of a pathway towards that career.

Certainly from any engineering perspective, there are a number of programs on offer to ignite that passion. See the F1inSchools program that we have been specifically involved with, but also a list of engineering programs for schools is available at the Australian National Engineering Taskforce website.

Such programs ignite the interest, the passion and the drive for students to prepare themselves to take advantage of STEM opportunities.

Click here to read the results of the STEM survey.