Tekt Industries Supports Women in Engineering with SuperHack 2017

INDUSTRY SECTOR: IOT

SuperHack 2017 is bringing together girls in year 10 and 11 from all across Victoria to solve a real-world engineering challenge and bring home prizes for their schools.

In Australia, only 12.4% of the engineering workforce are women. Various factors are thought to contribute to this, most significantly engineering culture and the attitudes and behaviour of male co-workers. Other factors include cultural and gender stereotypes, lack of women in leadership roles, as well as the over-representation of women in low-paying occupations (known as occupational segregation).

Graduate Careers Australia has found that educational programs that encourage participation by girls in STEM fields during secondary schooling could result in a greater concentration of women in STEM fields, thus reducing occupational segregation.

It is with this in mind that MUEEC (Melbourne University Electrical Engineering Club) and Robogals have organised SuperHack 2017, a superhero-themed hackathon held in Melbourne on December 2^nd and 3^rd. The event will include technical skills mentoring sessions as well as the Industry Problem Design Challenge (the hackathon component).

Up to 100 girls from across Victoria will be travelling to Melbourne's CBD to participate in the challenge, with lots of prizes and freebies up for grabs. Prizes include 3D printers, sensor kits, development boards, Bluetooth speakers and powerbanks. The winning team will receive further mentorship as well as a monetary prize for their school to fund engineering development.

Students will be able to choose from one of three challenges to undertake. All three challenges will be centred on IoT technology, utilising small hexagonal devices made and donated by Tekt Industries. These devices, based on the ESP32 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module, will allow students to send data collected from sensors to the cloud to be amalgamated and analysed, and for commands to be received from the cloud depending on the aggregate of data collected. Each device has 6 RBG LEDs, which could be used to display feedback from the cloud, and a connection for a battery so it can be completely portable. IoT technology can be used for an enormous variety of projects, which the girls will get a small taste of from the three challenges.

The event will be supervised by Melbourne University staff, and each team will have a Melbourne University student mentor, who will help with prototyping, technical skills, as well as any other questions the girls may have. These student mentors will themselves have mentoring and guidance from Tekt staff, who will be volunteering at the event.

The organisers hope the event will make engineering more concrete, relatable and interesting for girls, and show them how it can help people and change the world.

Tekt Industries is honoured to play a part in this invaluable event and looks forward to more young women joining the world of engineering.