Cumnock Public School Flying High

Central West Agri-Tech drone company, StevTech, recently visited Cumnock Public School as part of the STEM Industry School Partnership (SISP) Program – an initiative of the NSW Department of Education and supported by Regional Development Australia (RDA) Central West. Over the course of Term three, Year’s 5 and 6 students at Cumnock Public were learning about robotics, sensors and programming.

Last week, Principal of Cumnock Public School, Amanda Schulz welcomed Director of StevTech, Tristan Steventon as he gave a presentation to students regarding drones in the agriculture industry, and they are an example of how robotics can be applied in the workforce.

StevTech was founded in 2016 by Tristan Steventon, formerly an Australian Army Officer of 20 years military service, who grew up on a farm near Parkes. During his time in the military Tristan worked with high tech drones and sensors and has gone on to utilise his knowledge and skills in robotics and STEM to help Australian farmers.

“Visiting Cumnock Public School was a wonderful opportunity,” said Tristan. “I went to a small school, so it was great to see a vibrant country school like Cumnock Public investing time, effort and enthusiasm in the students’ learning.”

“Our work at StevTech is about providing data to farmers and agronomists to assist them in their decision making and increase yields and decrease the cost of inputs. For example, we can use drones to scan a paddock for weeds and upload the data as a GPS file. This allows the sprayer to only treat the parts of the paddock where the weeds have been identified, therefore saving on chemicals and making the process more efficient.”

Mrs Schulz continued, “Many of our students come from farming backgrounds so Tristan’s presentation was something they could relate to and were really interested in. The children thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Tristan’s career journey from farming, to the Army and going on to create StevTech. It was also interesting to listen to his advice on the high school subjects he believed would be beneficial for a career in STEM.

“I think Tristan and other industry leaders have the capacity to help inspire our youth to think big and dream of the possibilities there are in STEM – one student already has their sights set on a future with StevTech!”

The STEM Industry School Partnership (SISP) Program aims to engage local industries with local schools and deliver real-world STEM-related content directly into the classroom, making learning both relevant and engaging.

Through this collaboration, SISP helps to inspire students to study STEM and grow student’s job readiness skills, while contributing to the overall competitiveness of regional NSW.

Find out more on the program on the SISP website: https://sispprogram.schools.nsw.gov.au/