Students get taste of uni study
Teenagers from across New Zealand have been given a taste of engineering at Massey University.
Massey last week ran courses showing high school students some courses available at the university, including an engineering taster day.
Fifty students had a go at making music through computer programming and experimenting with photo colouring in a computer lab. They also had a tour of the engineering facilities.
The studentsmaking music used a computer program to create notes, then soldered cables to a speaker board, which made the sound. It was entry-level work to teach them about engineering and get them interested.
Students Kingsley Palmer, 13, from Scots College in Wellington, and Aaronwrathall, 16, from Aotea College in Porirua, were on the course, hearing about what Massey offered.
Kingsley said they had been using coding to make the different notes and tempo to create the theme for Mission Impossible.
Kingsley said the work was inspiring.
‘‘I’ve alwayswanted to do robotics and engineering for a very long time. I’m intending on going to university to do robotics.’’
Wrathall said it showed them another option for study and what life was like on campus.
Senior lecturer Nicola Brown said the programme began four years ago with chemical engineering and food, before expanding into other areas.
‘‘One of the challenges for people is to understand what engineering actually is. A lot of people don’t understand what engineers do.
‘‘The point is to get them here and get them doing some activities, something they can experience for themselves.’’
There were also experience days for the schools of agriculture and environment, and food technology and chemistry biology.
Other activities during the week including making moisturiser, visiting a microbiology lab, doing sensory taste activities, learning about earth science through simulating an earthquake, and inspecting minerals.