The second annual Amazon Future Engineer Day at the Telus Spark Science Centre was a certified hit, with hundreds of young people taking in the free day of science, technology, engineering, art, and math on Nov. 10.

Owing to Monday also being a PD day for Calgary Board of Education students, the centre was packed with kids taking part in coding lessons, robot battles and challenges, crafting, and crafting music through the use of technology.

Zack Anderson, Director of Science Connections at Telus Spark, said that the goal of the day was to inspire future scientists and engineers.

“All it takes is that one little spark,” he said.

Having Amazon partner with Telus Spark, said Anderson, allowed for free entry to the centre along with reduced barriers to access different activities which helped in the mission of helping people learn.

“Maybe it’s the coding activities, maybe it’s seeing some robot battles or what have you, inspiring, potentially, the next computer scientist, the next engineer, the next physicist,” he said.

A lot of what Telus Spark does for youth does have direct ties to school curriculum, said Anderson. But the different approach taken by the science centre towards learning meant that activities could be fun and complementary to the in-class learning.

He described the centre as being part of the informal learning environment that exists on YouTube with educators like Miss Rachel, or other out-of-classroom places of learning.

Inspiring future engineers though real world activities

Brian Cassin, event organizer for Kilobots 62, said that their robot battle event, as part of Future Engineer Day, was entirely about encouraging students to get involved with robotics and engineering.

“We’ve got the FIRST Tech Challenge here today as well, and then that does directly lead into like engineering and other STEM-focused careers,” he said.

“This is a great place to learn some electronics, wiring, mechanical builds, engineering materials, and things like that. It’s a fantastic way to just get all ages into some really engaging, really competitive STEAM activities. But at the same time, our pits are some of the best places to find camaraderie and cooperation. We’re trading parts. We’re trading tools. We want people back in the box after we’ve broken their toys.”

Making those real-world connections was exactly what Telus Spark wanted to do with the day, said Anderson.

“Anyone can read a textbook and see the periodic table. Anyone could read like a bunch of code. Anyone can learn to look at an ecosystem, web, or whatever the case may be,” he said.

“But it’s something different to experience it.”

As part of the day, Amazon had a pair of their Hercules robots on display, which are used to transport shelves of goods to human workers for packaging and shipping.

Anderson said that often, students learning coding in school don’t always see what the end result is, but getting a chance to see how that works in industry can be inspiring.

“A lot of the educational stuff that we do creates, like, scaffolds, right, that are built off of, and that’s the end game. So, you can see this big inspirational, wow, cool stuff that you wouldn’t normally see unless you work for Amazon, probably,” he said.

“It’s about that inspiring and seeing those things that you wouldn’t, and making those real-world connections to help enhance the learning a little bit more amazing.”