Would you let a high schooler and a robot operate on you? They're not qualified just yet ... but might be in another decade!
Some of Queensland's smartest teenagers will spend their school holidays at QUT from September 27 to October 2 for the QUT Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp (for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), which is fully funded by QUT.
The Year 11 students' challenges will include programming robotic arms to play the Operation board game without 'buzzing' the patient.
QUT roboticist Professor Jonathan Roberts, who is an advising academic on the Operation camp project, said the robot arms involved were recently on public display in a "hospitals of the future" exhibit at QUT's Robotronica festival.
"Robots will play a big role in the operating theatres of the future so we wanted to give our STEM Camp students a small taste of what's to come," he said.
"They will use Python - a widely used programming language - to program human-size metal robotic arms to pick up tweezers and lift the parts off the Operation board game.
"It's very precise work, but medical robotics is all about precision."
Professor Roberts said today's students needed to become skilled at working with robots if they wanted to maximise their future career prospects, particularly if they wanted to work in STEM fields.
"The robotics revolution is going to spawn whole new industries and careers we haven't even dreamed of yet," he said.
"The world will need millions of highly-skilled humans to design, develop, direct and maintain our robotic co-workers."
Professor Roberts is a researcher with the QUT-based Australian Centre for Robotic Vision where he specialises in medical and healthcare robotics. He is currently working on a project that aims to help medical robots "see" during operations.
QUT's STEM teacher-in-residence Anne Brant said 160 high-achieving Year 11 students would take part in the Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp from 108 schools including 66 Brisbane schools, 33 regional schools and 20 schools in the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Caboolture areas.
"The camp is an exciting opportunity for students to attend an intellectually-challenging event and gets hands on experience in a university-level research project of their choice," she said.
The projects on offer cover areas including robotic surgery, 3D printing of body parts, robotic horticulture, creating more versatile solar panels, and using forensic analysis techniques to solve crimes. The full list and descriptions can be found here.
The Vice-Chancellor's STEM Camp program includes:
- a project briefing day (Sunday, Sept 27)
- 2 main experiment days (Tues, Sept 29, & Wed, Sept 30)
- a QUT Real World Futures event with the students and 40 industry executives to discuss what the world will be like in 10 years' time (Tues, Sept 29)
- a Big Hero 6 movie night on the big screen at The Cube (Wed, Sept 30)
- a STEM Camp showcase evening with QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake (Thurs, Oct 1)
Media contacts:
- Mechelle McMahon, QUT media officer, 07 3138 9449 or media@qut.edu.au
- (After hours) Rose Trapnell, QUT media team leader, 0407 585 901
