St Mary MacKillop College entered two inaugural teams in the Robo Cup Junior Dance competition at Curtin University in Perth on Friday 4 August.
The two teams of four students from Years 5 and 6 began by first learning how to program the Lego EV3 Mindstorm robots, before preparing for the competition during a series of after-school sessions. They had to programme their robots to dance to a two-minute music sequence. They also decorated their entries, motorised the robot limb movements and created props for entertaining arrangements.
The dance entries were a team effort with students learning not only programming, but also creating and collaborating with each other over several weeks. The ‘A Team’ consisted of Chella Trigwell, Josh Teasdale, Gabrielle Christie and Logan Nutarelli-Hall, while the ‘Lean Machine’ included Heidi Thompson, Oliver Brookes, Codey Stanley and Thomas Gould.
While they had some guidance from Ms Tan and Ms Shipley, the students had to complete the programming and dance sequences on their own - no adults were allowed to assist the teams in any practical way.
Robo Cup is a national project-based competition for primary and secondary students in the areas of rescue, soccer and dance. The teams travelled up with their parents to the event in Perth, and enjoyed the opportunity to see what other schools from the state were creating, not only in terms of dance, but also in the areas of Rescue and Soccer.
The whole experience was enjoyed by all who attended.
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