Success in the RoboCupJunior Robotics Competition
The last week has seen our Year 5 and Year 6 teams participate in the first stages of the annual RoboCupJunior Robotics Competitions. These are national competitions hosted by BT Education at their headquarters in Martlesham Heath, Suffolk. RoboCup consists of a number of competition leagues for different age groups, starting from Year 5 and extending upwards to university students and beyond.
Our Year 5 girls took part in the ‘RoboCupJunior Line Tracking and Maze League’, which uses physical ‘CrumbleBot’ robots, and in preparation for this they participated in a ‘CrumbleBot Taster Day’ on Friday 12 October. This involved a series of practical sessions focusing upon different aspects of coding, and culminated in a team competition during which the girls put their new programming skills to the test against teams from other schools. The teams had to program their robot to compete against other teams’ robots to track around a circuit following a black line, as quickly as possible. The competition was contested by 35 teams from schools across East Anglia. Many congratulations to our Year 5 team who finished in fourth place overall.
Our Year 6 girls participated in the more advanced ‘RoboCupJunior CoSpace Rescue League’, which uses virtual on-screen robots as part of an earthquake rescue simulation. Our girls took part in a ‘CoSpace Taster Day’ on Tuesday 16 October, which also involved a number of practical workshops before a team competition. The teams had approximately two hours to program their robot to compete head-to-head against another team's robot and collect as many coloured objects as possible. All of the objects had to be deposited in the orange 'drop zone' before the end of the three minute competition time and bonus points were also awarded for specific actions. The competition was contested by 36 teams, with each team playing three matches against teams from other schools. Well done to our Year 6 team who finished in fifth place overall.
We are now looking forward to the National Finals of both these competitions, which will take place in June 2019.