Seven students from Year 5 worked together as a team during Term Two and Term Three to compete in the First Lego League Carramar Regional Competition on Saturday 4th November.  The theme for 2017 was ‘Hydro Dynamics’ and there were three areas of judging; Project, Robot and Core Values.

Our team, called ‘H2O to Go!’ explored the function of water meters and identified the need for a digital solution so that home and business owners have daily information about water use and related costs. We invited experts from the WA Water Corporation to visit our team at School and they generously donated and fitted a Smart Meter to our School water meter. This Smart Meter produces a graph of daily information about of School’s water use.

Our team won the project award for ‘Innovative Solution’ by developing this data into an conceptual app called ‘Smart Flow’. This concept design was shared with the WA Water Corporation who were so impressed that they referred it to their IT Department for consideration. At School, students also initiated ‘Water Wise Wednesdays’ to encourage all students to report leaking toilets and taps. Nominated student ‘Water Monitors’ from Year 5, record faults on a checklist in an attempt to reduce water use at the School.

The Robot Game involves programming a EV3 Lego Mindstorm to perform as many of the ‘Hydro Dynamics’ missions as possible within a time limit of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Design and sequence in which the missions are attempted are decided by the team and are worth varied amounts of points. Design, strategy and programming of the robot must be explained and demonstrated to judges. Our team robot scored equal third place and ranked 7th out of 27 teams.

Core Values judges look for evidence of team dynamics; communication, respect, collaboration, leaders and problem solving capabilities.

Here are comments made by our ‘H2O to Go!’ team members;

  • Aanishka Sen – “I loved being in FLL because it gave me the opportunity to try something new and different. FLL has been a great experience for me and I would happily do it again”.
  • Krystal Sherman – “It was very fun and we tried our best”.
  • James Paizes – “I joined the team because I really loved Lego and Robotics”.
  • Liam Ash – “I liked FLL because I loved being with other people in a team”.
  • Nivisha – “I loved being a part of our FLL team because we all had an important role and worked together to win!”
  • Kael Murphy – “Everyone should do it because it is educational and fun and I’ve learned to never give up”.
  • Tyler Woolley – “It was fun learning how to code the EV3 and build the Lego missions. I enjoyed working in a team and I’d do it again next year”.
  • Michelle Pestel (Coach) – “I am so proud of our team, everyone was 100% committed and contributed to the best of their ability, they learned so much about resilience and about real world issues. They are well deserving of their award”.
  • Jason Paizes (Coach) – “I really enjoyed it, I think the kids did famously, and I’m really looking forward to next year”.