Welding simulator gives Dapto High students a taste of steel

The competition isn't the latest version of Fortnite or Minecraft, but the latest in welding technology, and students have taken to it with gusto.

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Dapto High is one of five schools in the Illawarra that use augmented reality welding simulators, to allow more students to get a taste for welding and open up pathways into trades crying out for staff.

Classroom teacher Rik McCann said the digital welding simulators allow students in his classroom to get a better understanding of welding than could be achieved with traditional welding instruction tools.

"It teaches them all the techniques and fundamentals that are really hard in the welding bay to teach them."

Students can experiment with a variety of welding types and on various materials, with the same cumbersome gloves you would wear on a real job. The only thing missing, Mr McCann said, is the heat from the iron.

"It can be a long process to get good welding happening, because it's a bit like waterskiing, I can explain how to do it, but until you're hanging behind the boat on your own, you've got to have that feeling," he said.

"It's the same with welding, I can stand next to them but they have to get the feeling."

The technology gives each student's weld a score, encouraging competition between classmates. Year 12 student Charlie Fraser currently holds the top score in his class and has used the skills he's learnt in the digital welding set up to produce real tools such as a g-clamp.

Classmate Riley McCann said while there were obvious differences between the augmented reality welder and the real thing, being able to practise beforehand means when they are working with real materials, the quality of their welds improve.

The technology is in classrooms in partnership with Weld Australia, which operates the Advanced Manufacturing Schools Outreach Program across high schools in NSW alongside the Department of Education.

CEO of Weld Australia Geoff Crittenden said that industry was calling out for more students to adopt a trade.

"A veritable army of skilled workers, including welders, will be required to build and install the infrastructure needed to achieve the federal government's 43 per cent emissions reductions target by 2030 and net zero by 2050," he said.

"Unless action is taken now, Australia will be at least 70,000 welders short by 2030. And welding is just one trade: similar skills deficient can be found in just about every trade across the nation."

Dapto High principal Andrew FitzSimons said he is already seeing how the technology is making a difference in the pathways that students choose to pursue - and getting parents involved as well.

"Most primary school students haven't seen a science lab, and they walk in and they cannot believe what they're seeing," he said.

The program also helps to overcome a significant issue for public schools wanting to offer more trades subjects: cost.

"You can teach Shakespeare in a classroom and $50,000. To fix a [trades classroom] is $300,000 to $400,000. The classes are smaller, they are staff rich and the materials and spaces are more expensive to maintain."

With a taste of welding under his belt, Charlie is hoping to complete a fitting and turning apprenticeship and then move into engineering, and his teacher and principal hope that his classmates will follow.

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