Robotics Club

The main focus of the Robotics Club is to prepare robots for the RoboCupJunior regional, state and even the national competitions. The regional and state competitions take place in term 3. This year the national competition will be in Adelaide at the start of term 4. There are three competition divisions, Rescue, Soccer and On-Stage, with each having multiple entry levels from beginner to advanced. The Rescue competition requires the building and  programming of a robot to autonomously navigate a course, including avoiding obstacles, going over rough surfaces, climbing up ramps, all with the purpose of rescuing a "victim" trapped in a "toxic chemical spill" that resulted from a natural disaster. The Soccer competition involves the building and programming of two robots to work together against the opposition robots to kick an infrared emitting ball into the opposition's goal. For the On-Stage competition, students design and program robots to dance in time to music. The students choose the music and can create costuming (for themselves and the robots) and sets to support their act. For more information about RobuCup Junior Australia including competition dates, go to https://robocupjunior.org.au/.

In Robotics Club we primasily use Lego robotics systems. The construction uses Lego Technic, but also includes a programmable "brick", along with many specialists sensors, including light sensors, colour sensors, ultrasonic sensors, touch sensors, infrared sensors and gyro sensors. Programming the robots uses a graphical programming language that is very easy to learn, even for the absolute beginner.

For those who are looking for more of a challenge you can also work on a custom robot using the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller system. This system uses a text-based coding language, MicropPython.