Vex Robotics Competition – Gather Challenge

Robotics Club Australia organizes many events through the year. Another event happens this coming weekend and is none other than the Gather Challenge,

Teams will get together at Forest Hill College, Burwood East to compete in the "Gather Challenge" where robots will gather tennis balls, scoop and place them into high and low goals.

Whose robot will make it through the challenge and emerge top? We'll see….

It's all so exciting! This event is open to the public. Details below:

When: Saturday, 23 May 2015

Where: Forest Hill College, Burwood East (Enter via 73 Hawthorn Road, Burwood East)

Time: 10am to 1pm

Come along if you are free. See robots in action!

Robot Performance Award

Robot Performance Awards are given based on a team's performance in the Teamwork Challenge, Robot Skills Challenge, and Programming Skills Challenge matches.

One of these awards will be given at next week's Vex IQ Australian National Championships is the following:

Robot Performance Award: Top Robot Skills Challenge Team.

Stay tuned to find out who will take this award soon. The excitement builds up!

STEM Research Project Award

Robotics Club is pleased to be organizing the first Vex IQ Australian Championships on 20 March at The Peninsula School.

The Vex IQ Robotics Competition is where middle school students gather to compete for some very special awards which celebrate their hard work, problem solving skills and celebrates teamwork.

One of the awards at this tournament is the "STEM Research Project" award.

The "STEM Research Project" Award is presented to the team that has developed and delivered the most effective STEM research project presentation and demonstrated a significant depth of understanding of their reserach project.

Robotics Club Celebrates a Wonderful Year of Innovating, Creating and Making

What a great year it has been for Robotics Club Australia! We have just concluded another memorable year with our members and holiday Innovate Tech Campers. The highlights of 2014 include:

1. Two successful Vex Robotics National Championships in March and November 2014.

2. Four successful seasons of Innovate Tech Camps Australia.

3. Robotics Club's school team winning the Core Values Award at the Melbourne Regional FIRST Lego League robotics tournament.

4. Robotics Club's team representing Australia in the Vex Robotics World Championships in Anaheim, California emerging with a world ranking of 37 out of 120 teams.

5. Grown the Vex Robotics Teams in schools across Melbourne, NSW and Canberra.

6. Launched Aerial Robotics.

7. School & corporate incursions, exhibitions and career fairs.

There is so much more in between but we'd like to thank our team behind all this. We have also had many outstanding volunteers who have stepped up to help us in our robotics competitions. We have been very fortunate to meet so many kids and teens this year from all over Victoria, Canberra and NSW and we are looking forward to more interstate visitors at Tech Summer School 2015!

Robotics Reflection – A Student’s Perspective

Robotics Reflection

By Tharushi

I wanted to try robotics at the start of the year because I wanted to experience something different. It was hard at first because there wasn’t many people I knew and building the robot and programming it was a bit complicated. However, after a few weeks, I had got to know three others from Robotics Club and I had learnt much more.

I found out that the students from Robotics Club had the opportunity to take part in a robotics competition: FLL (First Lego League). Already, I had completed many missions and co-operated well with my team, so I decided to participate. I created a presentation at home and talked about how kids need and want to learn in the 21st century in front of Robotics Club. A few weeks later, I discovered that I got chosen, along with Shaini, Imogen, Dillon and Dhiluka, my new team.

Over the next few months, we worked, built and programmed tirelessly to prepare for the competition. We completed tasks at home, did missions after school, presented to students and staff members, met up at lunch times, organised Fuze video chats and discussed important things o Edmodo. It was hard work, but we were determined and focused. Our team motto was “WE WILL TRY!” and then “WE WILL TRY TO TRY!” and then “WE CAN DO THIS!” Our play was well-practised. We met up during holidays and weekends. Most importantly, we worked as a team, co-operating and encouraging each other.

The FLL World Class Competition was an AMAZING experience. We competed against 21 other schools. It was held in King David School in Armadale. We rushed to the practice room to check our programs several times. It was interesting to see how other robots were constructed and how they completed missions. The hardest thing to do was position the robot. We failed many times because of that, but it was still a learning experience. We were proud of our journal; the judges seemed to like it. At the end, we won the Core Values Award, for showing Gracious Professionalism and coopertition. We were proud of our work and all agreed that we had learnt a lot.

I am definitely going to continue robotics next year and will try to be in the FLL team next year. My goals are to complete more missions and use the robot sensors more to gain precision and accuracy.

Robotics has been very fun this year!