St Peter’s Girls Preparatory School hosted its annual inter-schools robotics challenge on 10 March, with everyone walking away a winner.
Organised chaos was the term of the afternoon as more than 100 learners from 11 schools competed in the challenge. Everyone received the same activity sheet and had to code their small EV3 Lego robot to do various tasks. Using white mats with black lines and different colour blocks and tiles, the learners’ ability to code the EV3’s colour and touch sensors were tested.
The day was broken up into two 45-minute sessions in which teams had to score as many points as they could by presenting their coded gadget to the judges allocated to the various tables.
The organiser of the afternoon event, Kerryn Schmidt said the event was for learners from grades 5, 6 and 7. “The activities they do are like preparation for the World Robot Olympiad which is usually a little bit more serious. This challenge is meant to be more fun, hence there are no winners in this challenge,” Schmidt said.
Megan Haas, who acted as a judge at the challenge, said the challenge was to encourage learners to love robotics. “Alongside getting the learners to love robotics, it is also to encourage learners to interact and socialise with kids from other schools,” she added.
While there was no winner, everyone had the chance to win prizes which were sponsored by Hands on Tech, who was also a provider of the equipment the learners used that afternoon.
Spot prizes were given out in categories such as most creative, most fun, most improved, and best team name. “We don’t really do it for the competition, but for the fun,” said Haas.
One prize winner was St Peter’s Girls Preparatory learner, Sanha Maharaj (11). Schmidt summarised Sanha’s afternoon, “She showed tremendous grit and was incredibly flexible throughout the day after having multiple learners to work with and was given a special recognition award.”
Sanha who also took part in last years’ challenge, said she enjoyed the day’s events. “I really enjoyed working with and collaborating with people, even when things got tough I still really enjoyed working with the people I did.”
Sanha said she loved robotics and coding and possibly wanted to do it as a career when she gets older.
The robotics challenge is hosted almost every term at St Peter’s Girls Preparatory School.
Related Article:
