Introducing St Peters' Techgirls

KELSEY BRICKNELL | Communications officer

Eight years ago, the Techgirls Movement Foundation ran its first Techgirls Competition—a program designed to change the way girls perceive and engage in STEM. Since its inception, more than 11,000 girls have signed up to be part of the hands-on competition and, this year, a group of St Peters students joined their ranks.

When you think about what an App Creator looks like, your first thought may not be of a nine-year-old girl, but perhaps it should be. This year, St Peters entered three teams into the Techgirls Competition—two made up of Year 4 students and one with a mix of Years 5-7 students. Challenged to find a technology-driven solution to a social, business or technical issue, the teams met once a week for three months. Together, they chose a topic, identified each other’s strengths and developed a range of STEM skills. With a Lockdown thrown into the mix, the girls adapted to meeting on Teams instead of face-to-face just weeks before the competition deadline, and rose above to produce high-quality business plans, pitch videos and working app prototypes.

So, what solutions did they come up with? The subject areas our students chose varied—from game-based apps designed to encourage users to rethink their actions in the real world, to service-based apps hoping to improve mental health. Each idea indicated a deep concern for social issues and a desire to give back to the wider community.

'Envirofriend', the app created by Year 4 team, the Dragonets, was an educational, game-based app intended to encourage all ages to help the environment in the real world. 'Pet Matcher', created by the other Year 4 team, StarDragon, looked to improve mental wellbeing for people with disabilities by helping them find a pet to cuddle. The final app, created by two Year 5, one Year 6 and two Year 7 students, was an mHealth solution—one which used mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives. Their 'Sign-age App' was created to teach Auslan to children from 9 – 14 years old, enabling them to better communicate with their Deaf or hearingimpaired peers.

To create their apps and develop their business plans and pitches, each team worked with a St Peters eLearning coach and an industry-based mentor (assigned by Techgirls). The Dragonets worked with Mrs Rachael Yates and Danielle Emerson— Innovation Lead, Asia & Australia at Herbert Smith Freehills; StarDragon worked with Mrs Amanda Rablin and Angela Luu—Legal Operations Manager at Herbert Smith Freehills; and our Sign-age Appers worked with Miss Meg Foley and Dr Urooj R. Khan— Senior Lecturer in Digital Health at La Trobe University. Our girls got a lot out of their coaches and mentors and it was wonderful to learn how much their mentors enjoyed the experience too.

“This amazing program is changing the way the girls perceive STEM, combining critical thinking and creative problem-solving to prototype a solution,” Dr Khan shared. “Congratulations and well done [to my girls]! Always remember it is more about your learning along the journey than just winning or losing. No matter what results come out, [I am] so proud of you all!”

St Peters’ eLearning staff reiterated the pride Dr Khan had for the girls.

“They were really enthusiastic,” Amanda said. “We had a good mix of skills in each team too—we had people that really wanted to do the pitch; some with a high level of planning and organisation skills; expert coders; design people…it was really good to have them all come together.”

While they each loved using their different skills and strengths throughout the competition, there was one unanimous highlight for the girls—coding. Most of the students had some experience using code before but said that, during the competition, it was different.

“I’ve coded Micromelons and EV3s in the Robotics room,” Year 7 student, Eloise, told us. “But you have to adapt what you know to use new software. They’re all different.”

The teams used Thunkable to code their apps—a platform that, Year 4 student, Adele, said inspired her to keep creating beyond the competition.

“When I worked out how good Thunkable was, I started going on there to make my own apps,” she shared. Adele’s desire to keep learning seems to be one the rest of the St Peters Techgirls experienced too.

Everyone involved in the 2021 Techgirls Competition has expressed an interest to take part again next year. In the meantime, they’re busy investigating ways to get involved in other tech-based fields, like Game Development and Digital Design. After just one competition, these girls have caught the tech-bug. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for them!

Pictured (top to bottom): Techgirls Group 1 (L-R): Madelyn, Tharushi, Eloise, Georgia, Maxine and Floria (not pictured) were Queensland Finalists with their Sign-Age app. They received the Award for Excellence and were named State Runners Up at the Techgirls Online Showcase in October; in action with Ms Meg Foley; Techgirls break-up party; with their Superhero backpacks.