FCJ College students had a unique opportunity last week to design bridges and underpasses suitable for a town accommodating Inland Rail.
The one-day activity was run by StemPunks, an educational company which delivers Science Technology Engineering and Maths-based education programs to meet the needs of a future workforce, in association with the Australian Rail Track Corporation.
StemPunks educator Olivia Augustakis said the idea was to run STEM programs with a real-world context.
“In this case we’re using Inland Rail. So were learning STEM skills relevant to what’s happening in their local community,” Ms Augustakis said.
“Today they’re designing pedestrian and road bridges, or underpasses, to accommodate the new double-stacked trains that are coming through regional Victoria up to Brisbane.”
For the project Years 7-9 students looked at existing railway infrastructure in Benalla, worked out if any adjustments needed to be made, then designed a bridge or underpass with pen and paper.
Ms Augustakis said they did this taking into consideration environmental and safety elements.
“They actually consider the height of the train, how many train lines need to go in. Even the length of the train, and speed limits need to be taken into consideration,” she said.
Before moving over to the computer design phase students undertook some hands-on projects including building their bridges out of spaghetti and tape.
The next stage was using two computer programs to compete their designs in the same way they would be done by engineers working in real life scenarios.
The first program is Tinkercad, a stripped-down version of Autocad, which is used in industry,“ Ms Augustakis said.
“They design their bridges in Tinkercad, then export them into a program called CoSpaces.
“CoSpaces allows them to render the images and create the scenery around it.
“They learn how to do basic block coding to code movements of some of the elements.
“So they can code that the train moves in a particular direction, and the little people can walk around in a set sequence.”
Ms Augustakis said doing this based on a real world scenario that affect their town increased engagement.
“And it builds on the skills they’re learning in their maths, science and engineering classes.
“Plus they’re getting an opportunity to speak to ARTC engineers and can discuss how what they are doing applies to the real world.”
FCJ College teacher Elizabeth Isaacson said she had great feedback from students.
“For them being in Years 7-10, they’re not sure what they want to do with their lives yet,” Ms Isaacson said.
“This is an opportunity to explore different opportunities.”