Earlier this month, Peter Baker, Superintendent Ventilation Broadmeadow Mine, spent the day with students at St Patrick's School in Emerald teaching them about all things robotics.

Peter was happy to share some principles of engineering with the students to help them prepare for their upcoming 'Robocup'.

"The students are involved in 'Robocup', an Australia-wide school program, where students build robots for various objectives. It might be for rescue, stage performance, the integration of human and robot movement - there's endless opportunities," Peter said.

"The robots are made from Lego educational kits and they are programmed to navigate a course to retrieve a ‘victim’ from a chemical spill."

Peter has volunteered with the school for three years now, as he believes it's important to pass on his own knowledge and show them what STEM careers look like.

"The students have recently started on a course of building and programming robots so I thought it would be a good opportunity to help out," Peter said.

"These 10-year-olds are our future engineers, and are now doing in Primary School what undergraduates were once introduced to in their first year of university."

"My kids also went to St Patrick's and my wife still works in the school library so it feels especially rewarding to give back," Peter said.

"It's great to see both the students and the teachers learning more about technology and you can see how much more of a difference it makes when you can bring real life skills into the class room."

“I really encourage others in the business to look for opportunities to engage with our local schools and teach the next generation about STEM!”