Follow the Dream students develop solutions for tyre waste in the mining industry

Artificial reefs, earthquake-proof buildings, and recycled roads were just some of the solutions that Kalgoorlie-Boulder high school students developed to solve the problem of old mining tyres last week.

The Polly Farmer Foundation’s Innovation Challenge challenged Year 7 and 8 Follow the Dream students from Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School and John Paul College to develop creative solutions so old mining tyres did not end up as waste.

Follow the Dream is an education program designed for Aboriginal students to access individualised after-school tutoring and activities to help students pursue a successful career pathway.

The Polly Farmer Foundation’s STEM and innovation project manager Anna Ritzema told the Kalgoorlie Miner the challenge was designed to broaden students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills using real-life issues and give them the confidence to share their ideas with industry professionals.

“The idea is that we have a conversation with industry, and see what are some of the challenges that they have in their industry, and how we can come up with innovative solutions to maybe help (solve) these problems,” she said.

“We went over to Sydney and met with the Bridgestone mining executive team . . . and one of the things that came up was waste mining tyres because we know that waste tyres is a big issue all over.

“The students had most amazing ideas. Some were wanting to make artificial reefs, some wanted to build foundations with the rubber so it could absorb earthquakes, we had playgrounds, new roads being built, fishing rods, shoes, animal shelters out in the bush and crash barriers for roads.

“They also looked at the properties of rubber which ties in with the science curriculum . . . and then using that (knowledge) to see how we could repurpose (waste mining tyres) and how can we do it more effectively.”

The Innovation Challenge is run in partnership with Bridgestone Mining Solutions Australia, with three pilot sessions held in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Perth.

Bridgestone employees met students before the challenge to discuss their roles in the project and hosted a visit to their Bridgestone Service Centre in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Last week’s challenge was run in collaboration with Perth-based company Skills of the Modern Age, which facilitated the design process to bring students’ ideas to life.

Students created stop-motion animation videos using Lego as a modelling tool to showcase their ideas to Bridgestone executives.

Ms Ritzema said students were also challenged to design an application to connect potential customers to Bridgestone products.

“We really focused on, looking at some of the key general capabilities and ICT capabilities for the students in schools and how you use some of those things in the industry as well,” she said.

“The ideas were quite impressive, a lot of the kids were coming up the idea of having a ‘Tyrebook’ or ‘Snaptyre’ linked with a similar model to Facebook or Snapchat.

“They wanted to have a marketplace where you could connect people to tyres and look at geographical locations, filters to get prices, the sizes and locations.

“One group created an ‘Instructables’ homepage which displayed ways in which to reuse your tyres . . . and step-by-step instructions so there were some great ideas.”

Ms Ritzema said following the success of this year’s pilot project, the Polly Farmer Foundation was looking to host more innovation challenges for Follow the Dream students to engage with next year.