STEM students in Year 10 and 11 went to Adelaide University’s Ingenuity with Mr Szular and Miss Schubert. It was an opportunity for upcoming graduates to showcase their final design projects to the public. We had a great time walking around and engaging in all of the activities that Adelaide University had to offer. There were lots of robots, including an arm showing a mechanical grip and a dog chasing everyone in the convention.  

One thing that I learnt was that resin printing exists, which is cool, as it uses light to create a solid out of resin and then transfers the layered pieces into another box that works like a microwave (except it uses UV radiation instead of Microwave radiation) to harden it. Those guys were using the biology of birds to engineer and replicate flight through 3D printing.  

There was also a group that made ice cream without dairy products by using the protein from broad beans and liquid from a can of chickpeas because it reacts similarly to egg white. They then used liquid nitrogen to make it freeze as fast as possible. This fast cooling created small ice cream beads which are a texture sensation that proves quite nice, especially when paired with coco pops.   

Alexander Evans