Year 8 student, Daniya Syed, from Unity Grammar College in New South Wales believes IT is a male-dominated industry but it does not mean women can’t work and succeed in it.
Earlier this year she headed an all-girls, all Muslim robotics team representing Australia for the first time in the FIRST LEGO League competition in Estonia.
The journey to achieve such a feat was no easy task but Ms Syed says she feels she has been lucky to have a great network of support around her.
Passion
“My parents, friends, family, team members and school have been very supportive from the very start. This support and mentoring has lead me to success,” said Ms Syed in a conversation with SBS Urdu.
Since Year 6 Ms Syed has been programming in HTML code every Saturday or whenever she could find spare time. Her parents both come from an IT background and have supported her enthusiasm all along.
Ms Syed is passionate about breaking stereotypes and has a message for all young girls aspiring to work in IT or male dominant fields. “I believe IT is a male dominant field, but it does not mean women can’t do it.
“I want to spread this message to all girls, follow your passion regardless of the field it may be. Women and men are equal and we have equal opportunities to succeed.” she further added.
Team Background
Dania Syed representing Australia at FIRST LEGO League in Estonia Source: Dania Syed
STEM Cells X an all-girls, all Muslim team from Unity Grammar College in New South Wales was formed in 2017 after a tryout was held in which 26 students participated.
Students were required to possess basic knowledge of robotics design and programming. They were tested on their knowledge and practical work.
Six girls were selected out of 26 and formed a team to participate in the regional competition of FIRST LEGO League held at Macquarie University 2017.
Ms Syed’s team qualified the regional competition and were selected as one out of nine teams to represent Australia at the international competition.
FIRST LEGO League is an innovative world-wide program encouraging students to come up with innovative solutions to solve a real-world problem.
Over 320,000 participants as part of 40,000 teams have taken part in 1,450 events worldwide since its inception in 1998.
It took me one year to design and program the Robot
Earlier this year
This was for the first time in history an all-girl, all Muslim team represented Australia at the FIRST LEGO League international competition which was held in Estonia.
Over 100 teams with more than 1000 participants took part this year.
This year’s theme for the competition was Hydrodynamics. The project included three main steps. Identify a problem within the human water cycle, design a solution and share how you overcame the problem.
“There are three parts to the competition. I was in charge of core values, programming and designing the robot,” she said.
“The process took me nearly one year to complete the robotic component of the project. Another team member headed the research aspect.”
Robots had to be designed and assembled in advance ensuring the weight is balanced and proper height restrictions are followed.
Once designed and programmed the robots need to be able to perform missions. The robots could take part in 18 missions. Each successful mission completed within 2.5 minutes would be awarded points. The team with the highest points won the competition.
The winner of this year was FSINGENIUM a team from Spain who came up with a project called The HYDROBALL, a tennis-ball sized water conservation tool that gets buried in the soil and measures how much water is available for crops. Real-time data can be analyzed via a smartphone.
Source: Dania Syed
Future
Ms Syed is optimistic even though their team did not win this year, “Over 100 teams were participating it was very exciting. We got a fairly high score considering it was our first time entering the competition.”
“I must say, it was a great learning experience and I look forward to pursuing my passion in IT and robotics.” she further added.
Ms Syed has also developed a mobile app to help the FIRST LEAGUE Lego teams track time and keep score of their robots in the competition.
Before participants had to manually calculate points earned according to missions completed, she has automated this process to take some pressure off the participants.
The app is called Robo Assist and is available on the Android platform.
Last week, 24th November 2018, the FIRST LEGO League states competition was held at Macquarie University in New South Wales. All robotic teams from the state competed for the state title.
App developed by Dania Syed Source: Dania Syed
Ms Syed’s team won the competition and will now be representing New South Wales on the national level.
So far her team has won three trophies in this season and they're looking forward to innovating and winning many more.
