This year marked St Aidan’s 11th Hour of Code event, and for the past six years, we have enjoyed an Inter-house Robotics Competition. Students worldwide participate in the Hour of Code, a global movement reaching over a million students in more than 180 countries!
Computer Science Education Week is held annually in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906). Many of our students have heard Grace’s story and know how she coined the term ‘debugging’ a piece of code! Grace Hopper was an inspirational pioneer.
Our competition began with the Coding & Robotics Leader introducing the event and sharing information about the value of learning to code, designing and building robots, and developing technological skills. The leader highlighted how well St Aidan’s teams performed in Regional, State, and National RoboCup competitions this year, followed by a video of the National Championships.
Throughout the year, and especially this term, the girls have been learning and coding different robots during their technology sessions. This enabled those who were more capable and enjoyed robotics to form teams and compete in the Interhouse competition.
Students from Prep to Year 6 gathered around their house competition area, each with a house banner and a table set up with all the equipment required for the competition. The challenges from Prep to Year 5 were carried out within a set time, with a large online Robot Stopwatch counting down, which was very popular with the girls!
Prep girls programmed a Bee Bot to cover shapes to a turn-around point and then return to the start. Year 1 students programmed the Bee Bot to travel from start to finish, covering all the pictures in alphabetical order on the mat. Year 2 students located a grid reference written on cards, which they turned over, then programmed the Blue Bot to get to as many grid references as possible in the allocated time.
Year 3 students programmed Pro Bots to navigate a maze, draw a square of 30 cm in the drawing area, and return to the start. Year 4 students navigated a Sphero through a maze, travelling under a tunnel, over a see-saw bridge, around a roundabout, and back to the start. Year 5 students programmed Spike Primes to collect points by visiting the shop, bank, and parking in a garage, completing as many tasks as possible in the allocated time.
The event concluded with the Year 6 girls racing drones through an obstacle course! The competition was fiercely contested, and the results were close.
The 2024 Interhouse Robotics Competition was won by Austen House. Congratulations to all the girls on a fabulous event!
