Wanago – STEM Learning at UTS

We have a number of students who undertake external courses as part of their curriculum. Our students may apply to attend the Wanago program at UTS (University of Technology, Sydney) as part of their Preliminary and HSC Courses. Wanago is a UTS social justice initiative, ensuring NSW high schools have access to HSC STEM subject delivery. Classes are held on the UTS campus at the Faculty of Engineering and IT. Students who successfully graduate the Wanago program are offered direct entry to UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT undergraduate degrees. 

Each week, four of our Year 11 students make their own way to the UTS campus in Ultimo and spend an entire afternoon learning their chosen subject with specialist industry mentors in state of the art STEM facilities. Below is a brief summary of some of the work these students have undertaken this semester, provided by their Wanago teachers:

Engineering Studies

Melyna and Jade, together with their fellow engineering students, have been working with UTS Rocketry to design and build a fleet of rockets. They modelled their designs using OpenRocket and construction is progressing well. As part of this project, they have been learning about aerodynamics, avionics and laser cutters. The fleet will be launched in Semester 2 and all students are looking forward to this exciting event. 

Information Processes and Technology 

Alanna has worked very hard on her Information Systems Project, undertaken in groups. Each student is from a different school and their collaboration in teams has been impressive. They have created databases,  graphics, presentations, professional documents and used mail merge. Her class has strongly developed creativity and problem-solving skills. 

Software Design and Development

Students including Chloe immersed themselves into a variety of topics including ethical and legal issues around use and development of technology, the history of computers, elements of computer systems, programming language generations, software development approaches and the development lifecycle. In groups students explored computer hardware and software theory content and created short videos to teach themselves about the technology. 

Congratulations to each of these Domremy students for their work this semester!

UTS Wanago is hosting a Subject Selection Information Webinar for partner schools including Domremy at 12.30pm on Friday 4 August 2023. In a friendly and relaxed online Zoom session, parents/carers are welcome to learn about the Wanago program and how it functions. Register here for the event.

Subjects on offer (from 2024) include:

  • Engineering Studies
  • Enterprise Computing
  • Industrial Technology – Multimedia Technologies 
  • Software Engineering

For general information about Wanago please visit uts.edu.au/wanago. Further information about these courses is provided as part of Domremy’s Year 10 Subject Selection processes each year. 

Ms Sarah Thompson, Leader of Innovative and Global Connections