UTS: Story, Newsroom

Building robots opens uni pathways

12 Jul 2010

A selection of 30 year ten students from NSW Priority Action Schools experienced university for the first time last week building robots with engineers from the UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT.

Sami Ismail (L) and Bashaar Elkheir from Granville Boys High School

The Make a Real Robot Project is part of an ongoing outreach program run by UTS during the school holidays to grow the aspirations of students who face many challenges to gaining a degree.

UTS Equity Consultant Maggie Ramsay said many of the students came from families where no-one had been to university or ever gained higher education.

“Without positive role models to show the way, these students may never consider that university could be their pathway to a successful career,” Ms Ramsay said.

“In some cases lower academic outcomes may be the barrier and students' motivation may be compromised by this.

“The Make a Real Robot Project is an innovative approach to overcome both of these issues, letting students see what university is like, letting them see who they could become, and giving them the desire to work hard at school to make the grades needed to reach university.”

UTS’s latest outreach program was modelled on earlier ‘Make it Reel’ film programs, held during the summer holidays of 2009 and 2010, where students made their very own video productions.

“The students were all from Priority Action Schools in South-Western Sydney and were carefully selected to ensure they had the motivation and enthusiasm to attend and to participate fully in the experience,” Ms Ramsay said.

“They worked in small groups with UTS robotics engineering students in workshop activities, culminating in building a working robot, a graduation event and an expo of their achievements.

“It is a high energy week which we hope will encourage the teens to realistically consider attending university.”

Best mates Bashaar Elkheir and Sami Ismail from Granville Boys High School said they wanted to participate in the week-long program for the challenge and the chance to meet new people.

"It was a challenging week," Bashaar said. "I learned a lot more about engineering than before, got to meet other kids from other schools and I am interested in maybe doing civil or mechanical engineering after school."

Not sure if engineering is the career for him, Sami said the best part of the week was building the robot. "I didnt know anything about engineering before this week," he said. "The computer programming was interesting but challenging. Building the robot was a lot of fun."

School principals and a range of Department of Education officers have promoted the project. The students’ achievements will be showcased in school assemblies, while the project itself will be filmed as a documentary for use in teacher education and to promote the concept of tertiary education for Priority School students.

Contact: Robert Button Ph: +61 2 9514 1734