Sparking up our interests
By Ewa Jadwiszczak, Yr 10, St Monica’s College
SPARK Engineering camp is an all expenses paid trip, allowing over 60 students in Years 10,11 and 12 to attend The University of Queensland St Lucia, for six days of educational fun.
Spark is run by 30 “Spark Staffies”, which is made up of students studying degrees from science to engineering.
This allows young students to expand their perspective on the uni lifestyle and get an insight into the endless course possibilities of tertiary education. Everyone was paired with a buddy and put into groups, allowing us to meet new people and form friendships with like-minded individuals.
Each day was full of excitement and surprises, we visited multiple universities around Brisbane, including QUT, UQ and Griffith, and participated in a range of group activities that reflected the types of engineering available to study.
One of the workshops included making electrical dice by soldering an electrical board, another was constructing a water filter out of various organic materials. These group activities aimed not only to enhance our knowledge of some engineering topics, but also develop team skills such as leadership and collaborating ideas.
Various organisations, such as Robogals also conducted workshops encompassing coding and other more teambased activities such as constructing a go kart suspension system, which gave us insight to new concepts.
Besides the educational side of Spark, I learnt so many new skills about working as part of a team, being a leader and building confidence through pushing out of my comfort zone while making new friends and laughing along the way.
Overall, this camp has given me a great opportunity to learn about university and the exciting innovations of the future. I am so grateful to Spark for making this program available for young people and to our mathematics teacher Ms Carrington and St Monica’s.