GLC Armstrong Creek’s two extra-curricular robotics teams are preparing to compete at this weekend’s FIRST Lego League SE National competition, after qualifying at recent regional competitions.

The FIRST LEGO League Challenge is a friendly competition, with teams of students aged 9 to 16 years designing, building, testing, and programming a LEGO robot that can complete missions on a table-top course. In addition to creating a robot, teams also have an innovation project to present to judges. The theme of this year’s innovation project centred on energy.

This year, GLC Armstrong Creek had two teams take part in the Challenge – SEMATICS 101 and SEMATICS 102:

• The SEMATICS 101 team, made up of six talented Year 6 students, won the Robot Performance Award and were runners up for the Champions Award for their LEGO robot at the Werribee Regional competition on Friday 18 November. The team’s innovation project centred on developing a way of making small amounts of electricity to offset the energy used by devices in stand-by mode.
• The SEMATICS 102 team is comprised of five innovative Middle School students (Years 7 – 9), whose robot, Torg, won the Robot Design Award at the Richmond Regional Event on Saturday 5 November. Their coach Greg Hollett also took home the Coaches Award at the same event. For their innovation project, the team received advice from professionals from Viva Energy’s The Energy Hub to develop a concept for a ship that is capable of making hydrogen in electrolysers using solar power and sea water.

The two teams are jointly coached by GLC Armstrong Creek teacher Jane Hollett and her husband Greg Hollett, with the program one of several extra-curricular activities open to College students.

Having qualified at the two regional events, the two teams will compete against teams from Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia at the FIRST LEGO League National SE Competition which is being held on Saturday 3 December in Noble Park.