Issue 53 – June 2015 – QUEEN MARGARET CALLING

unchtime S.T.E.A.M sessions have started up this

term to assist students with their various projects

involving robotics, programming, electronics,

lasercutting, 3D printing and whatever else they throw

at us.

As part of this the College entered two teams in the

Robocup held at Victoria University.

Year 10 students Jessica Fromow, Mila Kenny,

Katie Nunes and Antonia King entered the Theatre

Competition as a team named R0B0B and the Gears.

For this they built and programmed two robots named

R0berta and R0b0b to perform a synchronized one

minute dance.

Meanwhile, Year 13 students Kirsty Simpson,

Kimberly Hayward and Tabitha Byrne built a robot for

the Rescue Competition.

Both teams faced difficult challenges including

using unfamiliar programs, motor problems and time

constraints.

“There was a point where one of our robots motors wasn’t

cooperating with us, and was working slower than R0B0B’s,” Mila

Kenny says.

Despite a few hiccups, Mila says the competition provided an

opportunity to learn more about robotics, including the projects the

first year university students were making.

Kimberley Hayward’s team spent the day coding their robot to

navigate the university’s first year maze for engineering students.

“We used hardware (for our robot) that we were largely

Robotics Challenge

Computer Programming and Robotics in particular is a challenging yet rewarding area of study

for students and one which we are enthusiastically promoting at Queen Margaret College as

part of a push to enhance our students’ successes in S.T.E.A.M education (any educational pro-

ject that combines learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics).

unfamiliar with, and we had to be creative with how we secured it all

together, which was primarily done with vast amounts of blu-tack,”

Kimberley comments.

Her team learnt to code at an after school outreach tech club

called DFSLIA run by Victoria University students where they

developed a passion for robotics.

Both teams enjoyed the process of programming the robots and

seeing what the robots were capable of.

“It was fun putting them together and

learning how the mechanics worked within the

motor,” Mila comments.

It was not all about the programming that

made the experience memorable, according to

Mila.

“Making the costumes for our robots was

great as well, and we came up with rather creative

costumes in the end.”

Encouraged by the competition, the students

from R0B0B and the Gears have started work on

creating a mecanum wheeled omnidirectional

robot as part of their Digital Technology project.

Head of e-Learning Richard Knuckey says

this is advanced work because it will involve

programming, 3D printing and mechanical

construction.

But even after just a few sessions learning

to programme Arduino Boards, these girls have

shown they are up for the challenge.

Kimberley Hayward, Tabitha Byrne and Kirsty Simpson

Katie Nunes, Antonia King, Jessica Fromow and Mila Kenny