By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
AN ENGINEERING challenge creating a school classroom for up to 25 pupils without using nails, glue or tape was presented to local secondary students this week.
The design challenge was one of three facing the humanitarian sector set for 20 Year 10 students from Sacred Heart College, Clonard College and St Joseph’s College.
The students took over Deakin University’s Centre for Advanced Design and Engineering Technology (CADET) to tackle the conundrum.
The students utilised CADET’s state-of-the-art facilities such as 3D printers, laser cutters, robotics and a virtual reality laboratory.
The other challenges included creating a recyclable flat-pack cardboard bed for homeless people and those caught in disaster areas.
The bed needed to be lightweight, self-contained, and easy to transport.
Another challenge was creating a flat-pack shelter to replace temporary tents used in humanitarian aid and refugee camps around the world.
The pop-up school challenge had to be placed into disaster zones to get children back to school – and into a normal comforting routine – quickly.
The school must hold at least 25 people, be modular in design to allow for extensions, and able to be quickly and easily erected.
CADET program manager Jason Steinweidel said the parameters for each assignment were deliberately broad in order to push students’ creativity to the limit.
“The real challenge for students is to combine a great idea with the right materials and the right technology to turn the idea into a reality,” he said.
“The exercise is not about solving problems but helping the next generation of engineers to understand what they can achieve.
“Engineering is about so much more than building a bridge. It’s all about clever design and design is central to solving problems in the world today and into the future.
“Here at CADET, we’re incubating the next generation of designers who will go on to form organisations and start-up companies that we can barely imagine today.”
