STEM Aboriginal Learners Congress 2024

The CSER Team were privileged to collaborate with ATSIMA again this year to run workshops at the STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress in Adelaide. 

This year we also partnered with the South Australian Museum to run our workshop onsite in the beautiful museum grounds. 

Representing schools from across the state, students were given a STEM design challenge inspired by Aboriginal innovations including the multifunctional spear thrower design that continues to inform the design and development of so many technologies in our world. Students worked in teams, pairs and individually to design their creation, put their thinking to paper and used Gravity Sketch and AR MKR on the iPads to bring their ideas to life. 

Students demonstrated wonderful creativity, generating ideas including:

• eel traps with sensors that count how many eels have been caught 
• boomerangs with solar panels, motion sensors, cameras, remote control technology and apps
• fish traps that analyse microplastics in the fish they catch and others that have LED lights, thermal sensors and bluetooth connectivity
• traps using artificial intelligence to distinguish between fish species being caught or released with a live video for monitoring remotely

All this in less than 40 minutes. We were so impressed with the design solutions, innovations and problem solving skills on show! The enthusiastic students took their design plans to share with others back at school. 

Thank you to the South Australian Department for Education and the wonderful Young Aboriginal STEM Thinkers of South Australia (YASTA) for their hard work in putting on this event. 

If you would like to make use of CSER digital technologies equipment, such as the iPads with Augmented Reality functionality, visit the CSER Lending Library to put in a request. The CSER National Lending Library is made possible with the support of the Australian Government Department of Education.