Biraban Public School has selected a team of 9 upcoming champions ranging from Grade 3 to Grade 6 to participate in the First Lego League competition to be held at Narrabeen on 30th November 2015.
The theme this year is Trash Trek. Biraban is believed to be the only school from the Hunter Area competing in the competition this year. Miss Shaw and Mr Croft are two very lucky teachers to add this to their teaching skill sets.
APT Specialist Hydraulics and Training is assisting in a mentoring role and Kyle has been heading back to the school classroom each Monday to help the team.
The robot constructed from Lego has been built by the students, the students then need to program the said Lego robot to carry out a sequence of various actions.
The phases of the Trash Trek cycle are
- Demolition,
- Salvage,
- Cleanup,
- Composting,
- Scrapcars,
- Purchasing Decisions,
- Methane,
- Careers,
- Sorting,
- Transport,
- Recycling,
- Re-purposing
- and of course there are Penalties.
Watch the video to see just how detailed it gets. Gone are the days of pushing that Lego car around by hand whilst making a Broooomm sound.
To code the robot an understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is essential. But don’t tell the students that. When asked to do math’s they may just roll their eyes, however ask them how many revolutions does the robot need to make before he crashes into the wall from this point on the floor. Then add and at what speed in which direction, North East South or West. The students unknowingly put that mathematical knowledge to instant use and shout the answer proudly and it is a proud teacher and mentor moment too seeing them so engaged.
It doesn’t always go smoothly as some of the actions that Robo is required to preform are a little tricky. It involves critical thinking and many problem solving opportunities for the team and encourages them to interact in a diplomatic way so as to overcome this hurdle and proceed to the next goal.
As mentioned it is a competition and the team who’s robot earns the most points, which are awarded by completing tasks, is deemed the winner. The students are already feeling like champions, firstly to be paying with Lego at school and having the teachers help, along with a local community business owner who happens to deal in engineering and hydraulics. The makings of an awesome team.
The moment of truth is coming though. Monday 30th November is the competition date for Narrabeen and everyone, including Relieving Principal Mrs Hollis, are excited to be part of this experience.
Check back soon to see the results.