Student outreach – St Peters Lutheran College

August 3rd, 2018

Student engagement is one of many outreach activities we do here at the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group.

Last Monday 30 July, 2018, eight students (years 9-12), two teachers and a parent from St Peters Lutheran College visited us at our laboratories in Pullenvale to gain insight into what it means to work in the field of robotics.

All of these students are experienced roboticists themselves, participating in a number of competitions for many years (some for 5+ years!).

Some of these students are also part of a team called the ‘QLA Pineapples’ who are competing in the first robotics challenge in Mexico this year.

Erin McColl, an Engineer from our Advanced Mechatronics Systems team was host for the day and reported that “after getting to know them and their experience, they had a number of questions for me, including, what drove me to robotics, where I see robotics going in the future and what my job looks like day-to-day.

Our conversation took us to places like AI and machine learning, prosthetics, our digital footprint and public data, plus lots of other really interesting technology topics”.

Erin and the Robotics and Autonomous System Group are pleased to be able to contribute to enhancing the students’ extra-curricular interests in robotics, seeing that they are setting themselves up for careers in a word full of technology.

“Although many of them had interests in varied career paths, (mechanical engineer, marine robotics, chemical engineering, aerospace) they all understood how technology would play a part in that”.

The Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group at CSIRO Data 61 is one of the leading robotics research groups in the world. It develops foundational and applied research for a broad range of domains including; agriculture, advanced manufacturing, mining, biodiversity and biosecurity, environmental research and monitoring, cultural heritage and online learning.

To learn more about our outreach programs, contact us.