Being one of the sponsors, IET Victoria was invited to the event and was ably represented by Laval Yu, Michelle Zhao and Sam Joy on the night. The event started off with an informal session where the attendees were allowed to mingle with each other, followed by a more formal Welcome presentation by the Robogals committee.
Nicole Brown (Robogals Melbourne) spoke about the purpose of the organization and how it has grown since its inception. The volunteers in the organization aim to visit schools across Victoria to conduct LEGO robotics workshops aimed at girls between the ages of 8-16 and promote engineering as a viable career option to young students. Nicole also detailed a number of initiatives and programs that were rolled out through the year.
This was followed by a break where light refreshments were served to everyone whilst the entire audience were provided an opportunity to network with each other. During this time, the IET Victoria representatives were able to have a chat to a number of different volunteers and sponsors to find out about their needs. Following this, Prof. Jamie Evans and Ms. Marita Cheng both detailed their experiences as part of the initial start-up process of the Robogals chapter and the challenges they faced in bringing a group of volunteers together whilst maintaining a funding structure to help Victoria Local Network drive their activities (some lessons that the IET can take on board!) . This further led to opportunities with which Marita was able to set up similar Robogals chapters in other countries.
Finally, the Chapter awards were handed out as part of the Presentation ceremony by Prof. Evans and Ms. Cheng in order to recognize the efforts of the committee and volunteers during the year 2012-2013. The event closed off with a vote of thanks and another networking session where IET Victoria representatives had talks with a number of Robogals executive committee members.
A key takeaway message from the networking session was the opportunity for the IET to collaborate and work more closely with the Robogals Melbourne Chapter whilst targeting activities for young school students. In addition, there is enormous potential with delivering key services such as engineering based activities (robotics competition), soft skills etc. with the aim of making it fun and interesting for university students and helps assist their future career development.
* Pictures courtesy of Robogals Melbourne Chapter
Report written by Sam Joy