Ms. Ryan recently challenged Class 3T with a STEM project. The task was to build different structures using only cups, sticks, and cubes. The students successfully managed to problem-solve and work together as a team.
Young ICT Explorers is a non-profit competition, that encourages school students to create their best Information & Communication Technology (ICT) related projects. This year, with the event being held virtually – The Cathedral School competed with three Year 6, and three Year 5 students. Each team had ten minutes to pitch their inventions and answer a range of questions, to a panel of judges across Australia.
The competition’s alignment with the school curriculum enables students to apply what they learn in their ICT/Digital Technologies classroom to develop a technology related project of their choice. At the judging event, students have the opportunity to present their project to a judging panel of academia, industry partners and ICT professionals. Each project is assessed on the criteria of creativity, uniqueness, quality, level of difficulty and project documentation. Young ICT Explorers.
Junior School YICTE Organiser, Mr Ben Dallimore has seen some incredible ideas and inventions develop during his involvement in the past seven years of competition. “Each year I am amazed by the creative ideas of our students, and the way in which YICTE is structured allows our students to explore areas of interest and create amazing projects which they are passionate about.”
With an open brief, the theme gravitated around topics which concerned and inspired the students the most; the environment, and Covid-19. Summer Mason & Isabelle Pond (Year 6), created the ECO or, Environment Compost Organiser – which automated the composting process. “Their project saw them create a prototype of an automated compost machine which – once the grass clippings and food scraps are added – times the transformation to usable compost. With a tumbling central unit and lights indicating progress, the ECO simplifies composting so that everyone can do it. The girls have plans to install actual units within schools and homes, to help reduce everyone’s carbon footprint,” said Mr Dallimore.
Year 6 student Heidi Zahn developed the DCCD, or ‘Don’t Catch Covid Device’. With social distancing becoming important strategy against Covid-19, this wearable device helps to manage the task. The DCCD monitors proximity to others and alerts the user with a small led light when a person enters the 1.5 meter radius of the wearer.
Year 5 students Thomas Acton, Zeb Whelan and William McCallum presented the Automated Sensored Water System. With a series of sensors, the system can detect moisture levels in the garden, and activate a sprinkler system when the garden needs it. The sprinkler automatically stops when the soil reached its optimum moisture level, providing efficient and measurable water usage.
Mr Dallimore was clearly impressed with both the inventions and the way the students presented to the judges. “I was incredibly proud of the student’s presentations to the judges over ZOOM. They clearly articulated their ideas and provided thoughtful responses to the judge’s questions”.
The competition’s alignment with the school curriculum enables students to apply what they learn in their ICT/Digital Technologies classroom to develop a technology-related project of their choice. At the judging event, students have the opportunity to present their project to a judging panel of academia, industry partners and ICT professionals. Each project is assessed on the criteria of creativity, uniqueness, quality, level of difficulty and project documentation. Young ICT Explorers.
Junior School YICTE Organiser, Mr Ben Dallimore has seen some incredible ideas and inventions develop during his involvement in the past seven years of competition. “Each year I am amazed by the creative ideas of our students, and the way in which YICTE is structured allows our students to explore areas of interest and create amazing projects which they are passionate about.”
With an open brief, the theme gravitated around topics which concerned and inspired the students the most; the environment, and Covid-19. Summer Mason & Isabelle Pond (Year 6), created the ECO or, Environment Compost Organiser – which automated the composting process. “Their project saw them create a prototype of an automated compost machine which – once the grass clippings and food scraps are added – times the transformation to usable compost. With a tumbling central unit and lights indicating progress, the ECO simplifies composting so that everyone can do it. The girls have plans to install actual units within schools and homes, to help reduce everyone’s carbon footprint,” said Mr Dallimore.
Year 6 student Heidi Zahn developed the DCCD, or ‘Don’t Catch Covid Device’. With social distancing becoming important strategy against Covid-19, this wearable device helps to manage the task. The DCCD monitors proximity to others and alerts the user with a small led light when a person enters the 1.5 meter radius of the wearer.
Year 5 students Thomas Acton, Zeb Whelan and William McCallum presented the Automated Sensored Water System. With a series of sensors, the system can detect moisture levels in the garden, and activate a sprinkler system when the garden needs it. The sprinkler automatically stops when the soil reached its optimum moisture level, providing efficient and measurable water usage.
Mr Dallimore was clearly impressed with both the inventions and the way the students presented to the judges. “I was incredibly proud of the student’s presentations to the judges over ZOOM. They clearly articulated their ideas and provided thoughtful responses to the judge’s questions”.
The Cathedral School Robotics Club ventured to Brisbane on the first weekend of December to compete in the First Lego League National Championship (North) Finals. The Middle School team – accompanied by Mrs Patricia Lonergan & Mr Chris Anderson, left with the Rising All-Star Award, and some memories to last a lifetime.
The excursion also provided a great opportunity for the students to explore some of the landmarks of Brisbane including the ‘Cube’ – the Science and Technology Centre at QUT, the eSports Centre at QUT, Geocaching in the Botanical Gardens, and some team building at ‘FOX in the Box’ Escape Rooms.
Before the students switched into holiday mode, we asked a few of them about their adventures and the challenges they faced.
As a Robotics Programmer, my job was to program the robot to do each challenge. The best part of this job was being able to test the robot.
On the competition day, my job helped the team fix robot errors. My favourite part of the trip was going to Brisbane Fox In The Box Escape Rooms.
Lauren Pratchett (Year 7)
As a Robot Engineer, my main task was to design the robot so that it was compact and could complete given missions with specific attachments. The best part about my job was the laughter that went through the room every time our robot failed to accomplish what we wanted. On the day of the competition, things did not go accordingly; nevertheless, we tried our hardest to improve everything, so from the start of the day to the end, we were able to spread only positive messages. Another exciting part for me was to share this experience with my dad, who as a Robotic Engineer, has always taught me the love for technology.
Overall my favourite part of the trip was all the fun team moments that allowed as to forge such great friendships with each other.
Bjorn Hyseni (Year 7)
As a Robotics Programmer and engineer, my job was primarily to solve challenges on the robot game board. The best part about this job was to work with my other coders and robot builders to achieve the missions. On the day of the competition, on our first run, we ran into some problems, such as the four-motor rule and not being allowed to have overhanging parts of the robot outside the start zone. To get around this, I changed one of our attachments to a pusher so that we got rid of a motor and changed the code and I also changed the code of one of our other challenges to get it to start inside the zone. My favourite part of the trip was definitely the competition day, where we all got together and got to present our innovation project, and complete the robot challenges. I think it was a great day for our team to bond and work together.
Do Young Park (Year 7)
The pancake metaphor: the first pancake of a batch is always burnt- you need to learn how many bubbles it takes for that specific batch to cook before they taste good. We came up with this metaphor on the competition day after we had the most delicious pancakes for breakfast and we now refer to the whole event (and our robot) as the first pancake – terribly burnt, but a necessary experience. I think we did alright with the robot design, innovation project and core values, but the robotics side of it was, uh, severely overcooked.
However, though winning is nice and all, I guarantee you that we wouldn’t have laughed nearly as much if our robot had actually behaved. I figure in 20 years’ time, we’d all have probably forgotten about an event in which everything went right for us. But I bet we’ll always have a good laugh remembering the time where it seemed almost everything went wrong… except for the food, of course.”
Rose Ioannou (Year 9)
The excursion also provided a great opportunity for the students to explore some of the landmarks of Brisbane including the ‘Cube’ – the Science and Technology Centre at QUT, the eSports Centre at QUT, Geocaching in the Botanical Gardens, and some team building at ‘FOX in the Box’ Escape Rooms.
Before the students switched into holiday mode, we asked a few of them about their adventures and the challenges they faced.
As a Robotics Programmer, my job was to program the robot to do each challenge. The best part of this job was being able to test the robot.
On the competition day, my job helped the team fix robot errors. My favourite part of the trip was going to Brisbane Fox In The Box Escape Rooms.
Lauren Pratchett (Year 7)
As a Robot Engineer, my main task was to design the robot so that it was compact and could complete given missions with specific attachments. The best part about my job was the laughter that went through the room every time our robot failed to accomplish what we wanted. On the day of the competition, things did not go accordingly; nevertheless, we tried our hardest to improve everything, so from the start of the day to the end, we were able to spread only positive messages. Another exciting part for me was to share this experience with my dad, who as a Robotic Engineer, has always taught me the love for technology.
Overall my favourite part of the trip was all the fun team moments that allowed as to forge such great friendships with each other.
Bjorn Hyseni (Year 7)
As a Robotics Programmer and engineer, my job was primarily to solve challenges on the robot game board. The best part about this job was to work with my other coders and robot builders to achieve the missions. On the day of the competition, on our first run, we ran into some problems, such as the four-motor rule and not being allowed to have overhanging parts of the robot outside the start zone. To get around this, I changed one of our attachments to a pusher so that we got rid of a motor and changed the code and I also changed the code of one of our other challenges to get it to start inside the zone. My favourite part of the trip was definitely the competition day, where we all got together and got to present our innovation project, and complete the robot challenges. I think it was a great day for our team to bond and work together.
Do Young Park (Year 7)
The pancake metaphor: the first pancake of a batch is always burnt- you need to learn how many bubbles it takes for that specific batch to cook before they taste good. We came up with this metaphor on the competition day after we had the most delicious pancakes for breakfast and we now refer to the whole event (and our robot) as the first pancake – terribly burnt, but a necessary experience. I think we did alright with the robot design, innovation project and core values, but the robotics side of it was, uh, severely overcooked.
However, though winning is nice and all, I guarantee you that we wouldn’t have laughed nearly as much if our robot had actually behaved. I figure in 20 years’ time, we’d all have probably forgotten about an event in which everything went right for us. But I bet we’ll always have a good laugh remembering the time where it seemed almost everything went wrong… except for the food, of course.”
Rose Ioannou (Year 9)
On Sunday the 25th of October, two Cathedral School teams competed in the First Lego League Challenge Regional Finals at CQ University, Townsville. The two teams were mentored by Mr Dallimore (Junior School Team) and Mrs Longergan (Middle School Team).
What is the First Lego League Challenge?
‘FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge is a competition catering for upper-primary and lower-secondary school students. Every year, teams of up to 10 students build, program, and compete with a robot, while also learning about a modern problem in science and engineering and developing solutions for it. The entire competition for the year is based around one of these themes: Past themes include natural disasters, senior citizens, food health & safety, climate change, medical science, and nanotechnology. Tournaments are run with the feel of a sporting event, and teams compete like crazy while having the time of their lives. What FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge teams accomplish is nothing short of amazing. It’s fun. It’s exciting. And the skills they learn will last a lifetime.’ CQ University.
Both teams were successful with the judges awarding the Middle School team, the Engineering Excellence Award, and second place in the overall competition. The Junior team tied for third in the overall category and also collected the Excellence in Robot Design Award.
The Middle School team is aiming to build upon their success with an invitation to the State Finals in Brisbane later this year… stay tuned!
Brooke admits to feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement at the experience. “Mum was there for support, but once I was on the field and started playing, nerves went away,” Brooke said. Brooke ended up being selected for the state team, but plans are on hold due to the current pandemic.
Brooke started playing the sport in HPE whilst in Junior School, and she really enjoyed it. She now plays in under-15s for local team, Wests, in a mid-field position. She trains twice a week unless preparing for a big competition when she trains four to five times a week.
Both teams were successful with the judges awarding the Middle School team, the Engineering Excellence Award, and second place in the overall competition. The Junior team tied for third in the overall category and also collected the Excellence in Robot Design Award.
The Middle School team is aiming to build upon their success with an invitation to the State Finals in Brisbane later this year… stay tuned!