Tenix Aerospace
Extract from Tenix Aerospace & Defence newsletter "Aero Space Chatter" August 2007
Year 11 students from Parafield Gardens High visit TDAD at the ITTF
Concept 2 Creation is an initiative of NAMIG (Northern Advanced Manufacturing Industry Group) that unites schools with industry in northern Adelaide suburbs to promote education and skill development in science, maths and technology. July 5th saw Tenix Aerospace at the Integration, Test and Training Facility (ITTF), host a group of Parafield Gardens High School students to provide presentations on careers and opportunities within Tenix and the education necessary to get there. Presentations were given by Mandy Allotey, Charles Lloyd, Grant Zanker and Alex Fawcett of Tenix and Chris Horner of the RAAF and were followed by a tour of the ITTF facilities, specifically the AP-3C flight training simulator and the Tenix technicians' workshop.
Albeit in accordance with the Geneva Convention, it hardly seemed an equitable contest; 12 students and two supervisors were pitted against four Tenix Aerospace and one RAAF employee in what was best billed as an encounter between potential future engineers and existing defence employees. It started as an awkward moment where the silence was equalled only by the unanimous anticipation and trepidation, but it was Tenix who took the initiative, launching an unrelenting foray of presentations in a bold manoeuvre reminiscent of the United States' "Shock and Awe" campaign.
The next round saw the students divided into two groups for a tour around the ITTF, a move we thought should surely pay dividends, yet the students lapped up the action, unfazed by the magnitude of events surrounding them, and listened intently to the words of their guides. When the final word was uttered and the dust settled, it was not the anticipated scene of carnage that lay before Tenix but instead an unscathed squad of students, their resolve unequivocal in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. This time, it seemed, NAMIG had found a group of students impervious to Tenix's efforts...
At the conclusion of the tour it was apparent that the students had won the day and returned from whence they came, although unperturbed by the day's events certainly the wiser. For Tenix, another tour approaches; the experience of this first tour can only serve to improve the next.
A further tour is planned for year 11 physics students from Valley View Secondary School and will take place in August.
