On Wednesday 5th December, MSM Milling representatives James Karbowiak, Site Manager and Greg Lynch, Chemical Engineer generously shared their time for an incursion at Bowen Public School in Orange.
The representatives visited the School as a part of the STEM Industry School Partnership Project facilitated by RDA Central West.
James and Greg provided an overview of the operations across site at MSM Milling in Manildra.
Similar to other MSM Milling incursions within the STEM Industry School Partnership Project, the focus of the visit was on the automation and robotics used in the MSM packaging plant. The Bowen PS students have been learning about coding and robotics this term so the presentation links the in class learning with industry practices.
Students got to hear how coding, automation and mechatronic engineering is used as part of the paddock-to-plate process and learn how the STEM skills they are developing in school can lead to future jobs in the local agri-tech industry such as those at MSM Milling.
The students got to hold the canola seed and canola meal and view and smell the unrefined and refined canola oils during the visit.
The students then went into a coding workshop using Makey Makey’s with Canobolas High School Teacher Julia Boardman.
Using recycled materials and a Makey Makey, students worked in groups to design, make and evaluate a model packaging line that detects when a package has passed along it.
This was inspired by the mechatronic packaging machinery that is used at MSM Milling, Manildra Packing. The extension activity is that students will produce code that counts the number of packages that pass through the model packaging line.