TAFE NSW Start Your Future robotics program video

Sean:

My name is Sean. I am currently in year 10 and I go to Campbelltown Performing Arts High School. So pretty much the YES+ program is it's a taster course. We do three different courses. We currently just did electrical. We just finished ç And now we're just moving onto carpentry.

Sorin:

In my robotics class, we have been doing it for... This is our third week on it. And we have been focusing primarily on programming these LEGO EV3 bots. And also looking towards career paths and opportunities that we can take towards our robot-making dream jobs. Stuff like NASA or even working at Woolies as the automation for the production.

Colin:

I'm Colin Tyrrell. I'm actually head teacher of IT at Blue Mountains TAFE New South Wales college. I'm here as a visiting teacher with the robotics program part of the YES+. So is robotic science fiction? Is it real world? Good question. Today we have real thing. You have the Tesla self-driving car. It's a robot by all stretch of the definition. You have those little vacuum cleaners that go through the house. It's robotic. You have automated robots in the auto industry, making the cars. In fact, the car today is virtually totally made by different robots. And in Sydney here, we've got the big projects by Woolworths and others making their automated warehouse. It's all automated, it's all robotic. And they're the jobs of the future.

Sean:

So through the course, I've learned how to use the software, how to program, how to control the robots with the software. So we don't actually crash into things. We've also played around a bit with our colour grading, using the color sensor on the robot to detect colour. So it stops automatically.

Colin:

My aim of my part of it is to engage them in an aspect life that's ever increasing. So automation, robotics is taking over the world to quote someone else, but they're all going to be affected by it. So everything I do in there is directed at, "Here's a real life example." And so one of the challenges they had is they had to spray an orchard by going up and down a replica of an orchard through rows of trees and not taking out the trees. The other aspect of it's been well, one day, they're trying to get to Mars. So how you going to drive around Mars when you can't remote control any beasty from here to there, because it's nearly an hour turnaround time. So I try and put everything in a real world aspect. Vocational education is so important. We see a lot of people go through uni and then come back through TAFE New South Wales to do more hands on stuff.

Colin:

That's computer science, students who come back, graphics art students who come back, they'll come in. Uni is a lot more theoretical, they're changing, but vocational education is all about getting the students prepared for in the workplace. In dealing with clients, dealing with the employers, finding work, how to find work, how to progress through that work structure. Youth engagement program is all about getting kids involved in something they may not have thought about. So giving them an opportunity to get out there, whether it be electrical, whether it be carpentry, whether it be robotics or robotics is just an arm to get them into something like programming, or get them interested in skills that they didn't even know they were going to get.

Sean:

I was interested mainly because, technically IT isn't just all codes and stuff. Like you can also learn a lot of hacks from using shortcuts. Like I make music myself. So I thought, if I took the IT, I'd probably be able to implement my skills and knowledge from this course into making music.

Sorin:

A lot of the times, even here, it's still good that they told me, stay in school, keep learning your subject, take your IT subject. Because a lot of the time with robotics, it's mostly being on the computer, learning how to use CAD softwares and get into that. Once you get your diplomas or certificates. Then in my sake, what I want to do is I want to get into an electrotechnology career, and then try and branch out from there. See if I can get into an engineering and then just go hop from one place to another, to another up until I can get enough experience to hopefully get to my dream, NASA.

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