RDA Hunter’s National Leveraging A Stem Workforce For The Future Conference

Jenny Taylor of ATSA Defence Services has participated in RDA Hunter’s National Leveraging A Stem Workforce For The Future Conference. Featuring keynote speakers NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Professor Mary O’Kane and Google Australia’s Engineering Community & Outreach Manager, Ms Sally-Ann Williams, the event was attended by 200 national education, industry and government representatives.

Jenny lead a workshop on “Preparing an effective work experience program” based on the long running work experience provided by ATSA for local students.

The ATSA work experience is based on a challenging project for the students to build their own underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). At the end of their project the students are able to test there design in the ATSA test tank that is normally reserved for testing and calibration of Navy ROVs. Finally, students discuss design issues found and how they overcame them; limitations; how would they do it differently if given more resources and more time and how could the design be improved.

Jenny said that the work experience program had been very successful and provided ATSA with a strong connection to the community. ATSA was keen to support students in selecting subjects that would enable a pathway to STEM careers as many future work opportunities would be in technology driven fields.

Read more about the conference here:

http://www.meprogram.com.au/rda-hunter-conference-leveraging-a-stem-workforce-for-the-future/

Jacob Layton of St Philips Christian College Newcastle Campus with his completed ROV Project and supervisor Workshop Manager Paul Montgomery