For the first time, the Primary School entered two teams of students from Year 5 and 6 in the First Lego League Robotics Challenge held at Curtin University on Sunday 27th November, where competing students were aged between 9 and 16.
Our boys team called, ‘Techie Titans’ and our girls team called, ‘Robo Rollers’ had been preparing for this event for 8 weeks during many lunchtime sessions. Teams had to design, strategise and code an EV3 Lego Mindstorms robot to perform as many missions on a set Lego table within a time of two and a half minutes.
This year’s Lego League theme was ‘Animal Allies’ and, as part of the challenge, teams also had to research a problem existing between humans and an animal of choice. In addition, they had to come up with an innovative solution for the problem and share this with the community.
Our boys won the ‘Innovative Solution’ trophy. They had chosen to research the ‘poaching of tigers’, and found out that their whiskers and bones were used in Chinese medicine to treat backache, joint pain and toothaches. The boys innovative solution was to redesign the packaging of Nurofen to Asia so that it included a ‘cool’ tiger and dragon on it, but it contained no tiger products. They shared their logo, ‘A cause for claws’ by creating a magnet with a QR code linked to the World Wildlife Fund, ‘Adopt a Tiger’ initiative. They handed out the magnets to students in the Primary school.
Our girls won the ‘Inspiration Award’ trophy for their display of teamwork. Their project was all about the Green Sea Turtles eating plastic bags because they look like jellyfish, and dying as a result of starvation. Their ‘innovative solution’ was to educate and encourage the community to tie knots in plastic bags to stop them blowing into our oceans. They shared this with the community by creating a sticker with their logo, ‘Tie so we don’t die’ and a QR code linked to the World Wildlife Fund, ‘Adopt a Turtle’ initiative’. They handed out the stickers to students in the Primary School and spoke to managers of shopping centres and the Chair of ‘Keep Australia Beautiful’ about their solution.
Most impressively, our girls were the runner-up in the overall championship award!
We are very proud of all their efforts, especially as ‘rookies’, and it was wonderful to see our community of parents, staff and students support one another throughout the season and on challenge day. Special thanks go to parents, Nicholas Coplin (Coach) and Gill Coplin for organising photography and team t-shirts to wear on the day. I am sincerely thankful to Mr. Roderick Wood, Ms. Gill Dawn and Ms. Kellie Shimmings who helped to supervise and mentor students during the season.
Many congratulations to the following students for their well-deserved awards;
Girls (Robo Rollers): Ellie Coplin, Laila Peacock, Grace Perks, Kailani Foster, Tivvya Pillay, Alyssa Bester, Hayley Greig.
Boys (Techie Titans): Rory Coplin, Trent Scott, Trent Solly, Travis Woolley, Jason Jakovcevic, Joshua Cronin, Whitlam Hendricks.