STEM Outreach
Below are presents the STEM Outreach Programs, the Manufacturing Excellence Forum is involved with.
Hear more information about these programs, the MEFSCs involvement and the awesome work the programs are doing for students.
Bugbox - Robotics for Curious Minds
Supporting youth STEM is something we’re passionate about, and we’re constantly looking for ways to support more of this in our local ecosystem.
With this in mind, we’re proud to be able to partner with Australian STEM Education Start-up Bugbox and Sunshine Coast Local Manufacturer Design 3D Print Shed to provide a collection of “Polly” robots to a local school to enrich their STEM program.
Through Andrew at the Design 3D Print Shed, we were able to access extremely high quality printed components off of this 3Dsystems Figure 4 resin printer locally here on the Sunshine Coast. We had them in our hands within hours and without any shipping.
It’s a great example of leveraging a decentralised, high-customisation/low-volume approach to part manufacture that is hyper-resistant to many of the issues we’ve seen recently around supply chain disruption and international shipping.
Andrew provides a range of commercial components to local JMACX Off-road Solutions, Quality plastic products (nursery industry),Wesly hospital Hyperbaric unit to name just a few.
Polly is Bugbox’s STEM learning platform that is aimed at introducing fundamental robotics and engineering principles to students from Year 3 and older. Polly is designed to engage students through a creative activity where students personalise their robots with unique faces. We have found this step is critical in softening the barrier between students and robots because Polly with a friendly face is seen as a companion and students are emotionally invested in learning how to bring her to life in the coding lessons.
RoboKings - Chancellors College
The MEFSC was proud to be able to support local high school robotics team, RoboKings from Chancellor State College in their trip to the USA to represent Australia at the Maryland Tech Invitational competition!
The team placed 31st overall and also received the Judges Choice award for the best presentation of resourcefulness and ingenuity, especially in the face of challenges. We couldn’t be more proud of them.
The MEFSC contributed $1500 in sponsorship funding to support the team to purchase equipment for their robot and support the costs of international travel.
This kind of investment in the talented youth within our ecosystem is critical to realising our long term ambitions to be a national and global centre of excellence in advanced manufacturing.