To celebrate National Science Week, we caught up with the CSIRO to learn more about their new CSIRO Robot Responders Game – and what role actual robots play in their day-to-day work.
National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology, held this year from 15 – 23 August 2026. We joined in on the celebrations by catching up with Lauren, a Senior Mechanical Engineer at the CSIRO, to learn more about her role, the game, and how young people can pursue a career in STEM.
Check out her interview on our Instagram or keep reading below:
Office for Youth: What does your day-to-day job look like?
Lauren: I really love solving new and different problems. As a mechanical engineer, I often work with moving hardware and systems that we design that go into difficult environments, including underground and the International Science space.
And it’s really validating to see something that you’ve designed go into a real-world environment and do something useful.
Office for Youth: What is your favourite part of working with robots?
Lauren: I love it because it’s super varied. Some days, I'm trying to work out how to solve a problem. We’re working through what the requirements are. If we’re building a robot, does it need to have tracks or wheels?
And other times, it’s putting together what we’ve designed and trying to make sure that we built the right thing, and that it does what we wanted it to do.
Office for Youth: Tell us a little bit about the CSIRO Robot Responders?
Lauren: Robot Responders started as a book and it goes into some stories from myself and some other roboticists at CSIRO. And from there, many talented people at CSIRO have turned into a National Science Week initiative, which includes some classroom materials, a card game and an online game where you become the engineer.
Office for Youth: Any tips for young people thinking about pursuing a career in STEM?
Lauren: If you can, get involved! If there’s a student team, be that at university or through high school, whatever you can do to start trying things now and follow your curiosity. Doing things like that had a huge impact on my career. I met fabulous people and it really meant that I hit the ground running when I was ready to join the workforce.
A big thank you Lauren for your time to speak with us.
And make sure to check out CSIRO’s Robot Responders online game! It allows players to design, test and refine robots to complete missions inspired by real science and engineering.
We also want to hear how you celebrated National Science Week? Make sure to connect with us on socials and comment on Lauren’s video to let us know!