Top End students take fast track into advanced manufacturing jobs

About 160 Top End students took part in a transformative introduction into advanced manufacturing. Read what they learnt.

Year 11 Haileybury student Abi Tonkin was one of dozens from across the Top End at a series of workshops giving today’s students a sneak-peek into the jobs of the future.

Launched by Steeline GRP alongside Aeromech, SPEE3D and Diverseco, the Department of Education and Charles Darwin University, the Making It Real program hosted more than 160 students from Darwin and Katherine and directed them to pathways into advanced manufacturing jobs.

Abi heard about Making It Real through a teacher who knew of her interest in science and aerospace engineering, in part because her dad is a pilot but also her hometown of Gove, where Airforce and aviation are prominent and an aerospace industry is being developed.

Abi Tonkin year 11 student Haileybury Rendall School at the Steeline GRP Advanced manufacturing precinct in Berrimah, May 31st, 2024. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“It’s definitely hard to escape the Airforce in Darwin. I feel like I know a lot more about military aircraft because I’ve lived up here. I think if lived in metropolitan Melbourne without C17 or refuelling procedures, I wouldn’t have the interest.

“Advanced manufacturing is definitely a side of aerospace engineering that I never really thought of. I thought of the theoretical maths and science. I never really thought further about the advanced manufacturing side of it.”

The workshop and information session went over five days with morning sessions at Steeline’s GRP’s Berrimah advanced manufacturing workshop under the tutelage of aeronautics expert Professor Joe Bryant from SPEE3D’s and CDU’s material science experts and at SPEE3D’s CDU campus. Students would swap venues in the afternoon.

Steeline GRP special projects manager Mike Apathy said Professor Bryant took students through advanced composite manufacturing including carbon fibre, which is used on Blackhawk helicopters and other military and civil hardware, how it’s moulded and shaped into parts for aircraft, race cars rockets or numerous other functions.

SPEE3D’s Steven Camilleri with students.

They learn about robots and cobots (collaborative robots) at the workshop’s shot blaster.

“The kids all get an opportunity to hear about what the industries are that they can get into, what study pathways they can use, where they can do those studies, what industries they can get into and what the employment pathways are and who they should talk to,” he said.

“There’s jobs we don’t even know that are coming over the horizon where we need to start thinking about how the kids are going to be educated to actually operate those.

“We’re not working as much as we should be in Australia in space or aeronautics but we’ve got underwater autonomous vehicles which are state of the art being built in Australia that people don’t know much about.

Acknowledging Steeline’s pivotal role in the initiative, SPEE3D founder and chief technical officer Steven Camilleri said 3D printing, although relatively new, should be more widely available and accessible.

A Parap Primary and Darwin High alumni, Mr Camilleri hoped participating in Make it Real would demystify 3D printing.

Steven Camilleri with students SPEE3D’s CDU workshop.

“3D printing is something I think has been kind of neglected in the trade space, not just Darwin it’s global, and there is a lot of opportunity there that hasn’t been explored,” he said

“Metal 3D printing is relatively new and my personal view is that everyone will get a long a lot better and have more progress when we begin to think of 3D printing as another form of metal work. At the moment we think of it as we do PHDs.

“We tend to get trades people coming through and thinking this isn’t for them. I say they couldn’t be further from the truth. With Defence we’ve had some of our biggest successes with trade’s people.”

Another cohort were the scientists and engineers of the future.

“It’s always fascinating talking to them,” he said.

“I get better questions from kids than professionals in the industry. People with 40 years in manufacturing have their brains set in a particular way but kids with no experience ask amazing questions.”

The next step for Abi Tonkin is a degree centred on engineering, science or maths and then a potential career in nuclear engineering or aerospace.

She recommended events like Making It Real for finetuning career pathways in senior school.

“If anybody has an opportunity to do days like this they definitely should take them,” she said.

“This was something that I wasn’t considering as heavily before today, and it’s definitely something I know more about now and I can make an informed decision about where I wanted to go.”

Originally published as Top End students take fast track into advanced manufacturing jobs