This week I got to experience the best of both worlds with my work at the Tech School overflowing and contributing to my ambition to be a keynote speaker. My boss had asked if I wanted to represent the Tech School at STEM MAD, an Australian educational initiative and student showcase program for primary school students across Catholic schools. The MAD stands for ‘make a difference’ which was the open brief for all students to create a project to present at the event.
At first I thought my boss had hand balled it to me because everyone else was busy but it turns out that he’d kindly asked me to do it because he knew about my aspirations to be a speaker and saw this as a great opportunity for me to get some experience. I’m glad he took a punt because I had an absolute blast.
Primary school aged kids are my jam. Last week I’d complained about Year 9’s not responding to the question, what does STEM stand for but when I asked 180 Year 5 and 6’s to stand up and yell out what each letter stood for, I was met with a wall of noise! They screamed it out. Primary school kids always bring the vibes so I was excited to be an official keynote speaker at the event.
I tried not to get stressed about what I was going to say in the 15 minute presentation. I knew that a representative from Apple would be there so I didn’t want to have a slide deck knowing that they’d have some slick as presentation (they did) and to be honest I didn’t have the time to think about it in between working, writing a book, graphic design and the general chaos of parenting. I did a quick run through with the kids this morning before they headed to school and their notes were encouraging enough although Alice asked if I could mention her by name which made me laugh. Matt and I have a running joke that whenever we catch up with anyone without the other person, we always ask, did they ask about me? It sounds lame writing it out loud but it is always funny at the time.
My talk was titled “STEM is everywhere”. I wanted to keep it board so I had space to improvise on the stage, and I hadn’t really prepared much, but I did have a few notes that I used for flow. I wanted to talk about how I never thought I’d be a STEM educator because I used to design primary school books, which didn’t feel very STEM’y but was a really great exercise in communicating ideas clearly and working in a team. These are skills that all people in STEM need because if you can’t share your ideas and work together in a team you're going to find bringing ideas to life very difficult. Collaboration is so important.
I used tooth paste as an example that STEM is everywhere - touching on the topic of the talk is always a good idea! I asked all the students if they’d brushed their teeth and most had but there were a few kids who proudly stated that they hadn’t brushed their teeth this morning. It's a good reminder that there will always be a smart arsed heckler in the crowd, regardless of the audience.
Tooth paste was my vehicle to explain how much STEM is all around us. We need scientists and biologists to make sure that we're using ingredients that are good for us. We need maths and technology for the automation of machines and measuring out ingredients and figuring out volumes. We need every type of engineering imaginable to build the factories and machinery that mix and package the toothpaste. All this STEM and we haven't even left the bathroom. They loved it.
I finished by explaining all the amazing programs we have at the Tech School and how wonderful it would be if everyone woke up and strived to make a difference every day. I thanked them for the invitation and I was done. It was a bummer that we only work with secondary schools because I had stacks of the primary school teachers asking how they could be involved with the Tech School. It was awesome that everyone was so interested.
It wasn’t nearly as awesome as the quality of the projects that the students had created. They’d been working on their ideas for about 10 weeks which meant they had some amazing prototypes. I was super impressed when lots of the project included training models for AI. There was a group that used drones to spot sharks then used AI to distinguish between sharks and other sea creatures. It responded by emitting a frequency that repelled the sharks as well as sending a warning system to the shore that there were sharks in the water.
There was a trolley system that used AI to help keep your budget on track. You had to enter your amount you wanted to spend and the AI would tally items and cost letting you know when you had hit your budget. It also suggested healthy food alternatives which I thought was a nice touch. One group was using AI to detect when swans were approaching the road, the system would set off a led light system that was attached to a road sign so drivers would know when a swan was about to cross the road.
There was one project which created special outsoles for your shoes that collected and transferred kinetic energy to panels in the floor so it could be used to power the building. I loved this one - it was wild but they didn't have any of the hang ups that adults would have like what happens if you don’t discharge the energy, would your feet catch fire? We spoke about how they could have dance classes in the building to keep people moving and powering the place. There was another group that had built a completely self-sustaining and sustainable theme park. The ferris wheel worked as a turbine generating electricity that was used to power the other rides. They were very proud of the working website that you could order food on so you didn’t have to wait in line, they even had robots that would deliver the food to anywhere in the park.
I got to pick an award for ‘Best use of Tech’ which was almost impossible as there were over 40 projects to choose from. I was parched from asking so many questions so I went with a ‘Hydro Track’ which was a sensor that you have in your drink bottle that feedbacks back to an app that tracks how much water you drink throughout the day. It was to encourage people to drink the right amount of water. The idea was simple but clever.
The care and thought that all of these students had put into their projects was pretty amazing. I was genuinely surprised at how achievable and innovative some of these projects were. Primary school students are some of the best idea generators around. They don’t get hung up on feasibility and just let their imagination and creativity run wild. All we can hope is that these bright young people continue to think like this. Imagine if we all woke up every day thinking how I can make a difference?
