Robotics Club wins FLL regional competition

The new Year 5 and 6 Robotics Club students at Dominic College are on their way to Macquarie University for national finals after winning the Champion Award at the regional First Lego League (FLL) titles on Saturday 14 November.

Dominic College hosted the event for five qualifying schools in our Savio student hub.

This year’s FLL Challenge was called TrashTrek and had three parts which scored points in the judges evaluation: the Robot Game, the Project, and the FLL Core Values. Teams had up to 10 participants, with at least one adult coach, and took part by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game), developing a solution to a problem they have identified (Project), all guided by the FLL Core Values.

For their TrashTrek Project, Dominic College students chose the challenge of reducing the rate of landfill of plastic snap lock bags from our students’ lunchboxes and have been talking with Glenorchy City Council and a local business to find an alternative and better way to deal with snap lock bag disposal.

The Robot Game consisted of designing, building and programming a robot to undertake a series of tasks on a custom-built game board, under time and rule constraints. The finals were a series of maneuvers aimed to gain points and avoid penalties.

Year 6 student, Tyler Graham said on the day of the competition everyone looked calm 'But we were all nervous!'

'First up a judge looked at the robot design to see that it would work and not fall apart during the missions. Next we did the presentation in front of a judge who seemed amazed with our work. After the presentation we got tested on First’s core values then the moment I had been waiting for the whole day, the robot challenge.' The Robotics Club were handling the pressure… just.

'On the practice run everything went as planned and we completed three of the missions and we were very happy with our robot,' Tyler continued. 'On the second run we were being scored and only made one mistake we were pleased although the practice run didn’t count towards points. The third run didn’t go at all to plan but it was the high score that counted.'

FLL judges were impressed by all teams, but Dominic College students were delighted when DC Waste Warriors were awarded the overall Champion’s Trophy and qualified for the nationals in Sydney in December.

Mrs Selina Kinne, Director of teaching and Learning K-10 at Dominic College thanked the students, staff and parents for their support and encouragement of the team, who worked on the Project after school, on Saturdays and public holidays.

Mrs Kinne said that Robotics is a great way for students to learn about innovative technology which is fast becoming a part of our everyday lives.

'In Robotics students learn to program - a key component of the Australian Curriculum in the area of Digital Technologies - but also students learn skills of collaborative problem solving, a 21st Century skill students will need for the future.'

'Learning robotics is a great way of engaging students in STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and this competition also included Creative Arts in the areas of design and presentation of their project.'

‘We have a queue of younger students waiting to join the Robotics Club next year. They love it!’

You can see more photos on our website gallery: FLL Robotics.