Earlier this month, our Primary Robotics Team, RoboGirls (Alyssa Parker, Charlotte Popp, Emma Dawson, Kaylee Swarts and Tiahna Cutts) competed at the First Lego League Wooloowin Regional Robotics Competition. This competition is about so much more than just coding robots. The girls had to complete a series of challenges based on the 6 Core Values of First Lego League:

1. Discovery
2. Innovation
3. Impact
4. Inclusion
5. Teamwork
6. Fun!

This year’s theme was “City Shaper” and the team’s mission was to be a force for change and find solutions to a range of environmental issues by not only completing robot missions, but researching and presenting innovative solutions to a problem. The team’s Innovation Project involved researching, designing and planning for a sustainable lift that could potentially be fitted to the Year 5 & 6 classrooms to allow ease of access upstairs. Inspired by Lego, they designed their own triangular blocks that would be made from recycled plastic and put together to form a lift that is run on solar power – it was very impressive!

Over four hours, the girls completed three Robot Games in front of an audience, attended robot design and coding judging, completed a surprise Core Values teamwork challenge and presented their Innovation Project to a panel. We were in awe watching these young women take on such big challenges. To prepare, they committed to lunch time meetings, after school sessions and even a day on the holidays. It was an immense amount of work but they took it in their stride and never wavered under pressure.

At the end of the day, RoboGirls took out the Inspiration Award trophy. Well done RoboGirls!

Take a look at one of their robots in action!