They'll teach pint-sized humanoid robots how to pick cherries, analyse big data on the world's biggest educational touch screen system, and bunker down in labs to create cheaper biofuels for the cars of the future and learn how to fly unmanned aerial vehicles ... and still find time for popcorn and movies.
While their mates are sleeping in on the school holidays, 179 of Queensland's brainiest teens will be pitting their mental muscle against 16 of the hardest "real-world" challenges QUT scientists and researchers can dream up.
The five-day QUT Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp (for Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) runs from today (September 29) until Friday (October 3) and will see Year 11 students from Brisbane to Cairns work in teams on 16 different projects. Their main experimental work will be carried out on Wednesday, October 1.
QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake, industry leaders and Queensland Chief Scientist Geoff Garrett will also visit the camp on Wednesday.
QUT's Executive Dean of Science and Engineering, Professor Gordon Wyeth, said the school students would utilise the world-class STEM facilities of QUT's $230 million Science and Engineering Centre.
"Australia has a lot of work to do if we want to be an international player in technology-based industries, but these school students - and their older counterparts already studying at university - are up to the challenge," he said.
Professor Wyeth, who himself is a robotics expert, said the 58cm-tall Nao humanoids being programmed by the camp participants this week looked cute but had an important mission.
"The Naos are incredibly versatile robots and we have been using them as a captivating and unique way for students and researchers to translate theory into practice with real-world robots," he said.
"Robotics is one of QUT's strengths and we were recently announced as the headquarters of the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision."
QUT lecturer Chris Lehnert will be running Wednesday's Nao workshop for the camp participants.
"We'll be teaching the students how to program code in Python to control the robots' behaviours, vision and navigation," he said.
"The challenge will be to produce the processing capabilities to tell the robot how to detect and track fruit, navigate towards the fruit and, ultimately, manipulate and harvest the fruit."
A full list of the Queensland schools involved in the QUT Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp can be found here.
Descriptions of the 16 projects being tackled by students at the camp can be found here.
Media photo/vision opportunity
WHAT: QUT Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp - NAOS robot workshop with Yr 11 students
WHEN: Wednesday, Oct 1, 10am - 11am
WHERE: QUT Science & Engineering Centre, P Block (Level 5), Gardens Point campus
RSVP for parking etc: media@qut.edu.au
Media contacts:
- Mechelle McMahon, QUT media officer, 07 3138 9449 or media@qut.edu.au
- Novella Moncrieff (on-site contact), Science & Engineering Faculty, 0438 533 726
