Award for encouraging bright minds

Using robots and 3D printing, Lake Clifton resident Trish Davies has been encouraging a passion for technology in youth for which she was named a champion at the Peel Bright Minds ESTEAM Awards.

Ms Davies was named the ESTEAM, which stands for Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, Champion of the Year in a ceremony at the Contemporary Art Spaces in Mandurah on June 28.

For two years Ms Davies has volunteered at as a Champion and Mentor of the Falcon FabLab CoderDojo technology club teaching coding and technology to more than 300 youth during that time.

Students in the club are taught programming and coding through projects including programming a micro controller with which they control a robot.

Ms Davies said the students engaged with practical projects and actively used their skills.

“We’re trying to improve that, getting them building again,” she said.

Ms Davies said the program also introduced the students to 3D printing, with kids able to design and make their own robots.

She shares her skills developed over her career as a photographer, audio-visual technician, media technician and from studying information technology at Peel Challenger College.

With many schools taking up coding and robotics courses, Ms Davies had also worked with teachers through workshops.

She said she hoped to expand the program and bring it to other towns in the library network such as Waroona and Pinjarra. “They would just provide the space and I would run it for them,” she said.

Ms Davies said future jobs would not just be behind a computer, so kids needed to be able to apply their skills.

“It’s not just going to be on the computer it’s going to be a guy or a girl reprogramming devices,” she said.