A Kiama robotics team of eight kids aged six to 12 years, has returned with an important win from the Australian National First LEGO League tournament, hosted by Macquarie University.
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Team Ctrl+Alt+Del, made up of Banjo Povea-Purcell, Tasman Koorey, Matilda Povea-Purcell, Nicola Porritt, Kel Povea-Purcell, Kai King, Harry Stortz, and Olivia Povea-Purcell, took out the Inspiration Award at the lucrative contest.
In doing so, Ctrl+Alt+Del was one of only 13 teams from across Australia to progress to an international event.
Only three teams are going to the World Championships in Houston, Texas, in April 2019 – the other two are high school teams.
First LEGO League (FLL) is a competition for students aged 9-16. Every year, teams of up to 10 students are issued a new challenge based around a theme with modern problems to be solved.
Teams design, build and program a robot to complete a series of challenges. The robot has to operate on pre-programmed instructions, and complete as many tasks as possible in only two minutes and 30 seconds.
When asked about the biggest challenge of the competition, Banjo Povea-Purcell said without doubt it was getting the robot to work consistently.
“We are working with LEGO and things often go wrong,” he said.
“We spent months perfecting our code for the robot and after each level of competition we refined it more and learned new things to improve our score.
“What we learned through all of it was that when our robot messes up, to celebrate the failure, because it's just discovering a new way it doesn't work. We found lots of them! Then we found the way that worked and get a personal best score at the National Championships.”
STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) instructional leader at Kiama Public School, Lauren Purcell said one of the hardest aspects of the competition for the kids was the research project, which is one of three elements the teams are judged on throughout the competition.
“It asked them to investigate a problem faced by astronauts during space travel or while living in space for long periods of time,” Mrs Purcell said.
“This wasn't tangible for the kids, having never been to space, but they did the next best thing and sent an experiment into space that was tested on board the International Space Station and gave them invaluable date for their research project.
“Preparing for competition was also daunting at times, as they were one of 840 teams around Australia, and lots of those are made up of High School students.
“When they went from the Wollongong Regional, to the NSW State Tournament, then to being one of 70 teams at the National Championship, they were blown away and started to realise the potential they have and just how much their hard work paid off.”
For Tasman Koorey, the biggest challenge was “focusing and trying not to stress at times when things do not go to plan”.
Understandably, it was pure elation all round when Ctrl+Alt+Del realised they had won the award and were off to the US.
Matilda Povea-Purcell said she was “so happy and elated”.
“I almost cried because I was so happy! Our coach almost fell off her chair and the whole team was just so excited and happy because we had worked so hard all year to get to this goal,” she said.
Nicola Nicola Porritt said she was shocked at first.
“I thought they had said a different team number. When I realised it was us I was so excited,” she said.
Harry Stortz said he “just started screaming”.
Tasman was so excited and happy.
“I was in shock, I was also screaming saying ‘OMG we are going to Texas’, while giving my teammates fist bumps and high-fives.”
Mrs Purcell said she was hoping the overseas competition would allow the kids to realise nothing is impossible and they should dare to dream big.
“The team has done so well and stayed focused in the competition this entire year. Their goal was to make it to state level, then they raised the bar to nationals, and then they just hoped to get an award at the national championship,” she said.
“It was just in their wildest dreams they hoped they could maybe go on to an international event. Now that the dream is reality, we're really quite shell-shocked and readjusting our goals an expectations.
“For the team, the biggest reward in this honour of being selected to advance to the World Championship is representing their country. Not many kids can say that they represented their country before they even left primary school.
“I hope the experience gives them inspiration and empowerment to be world changers and design the next amazing inventions in medicine, science, and engineering that will make a real difference to lives around the world.”
Ctrl+Alt+Del has launched a GoFundMe page, to help fund the cost of the trip. Click on the link to find out more and help them on their way.
Hailing from Wollongong, Project Bucephalus, made up of Isaac Clark, Faith Clark, Cara Sims, Izzy McGuire, Esther Case, Rebekah Case, Jonathan Keenan, Noah Keenan, Abi Keenan and Soia Lolesi, was named overall champions of the competition.
Coach, Andrew Clark said one of the biggest challenges for the team this year was bringing the newcomers up to the level of the experienced students.
“We also came second place in the robot performance section,” Mr Clark said.
“We were really happy, excited, excruciatingly surprised and a bit nervous,” team member Jonathan Keenan said.
“The best part was that the team get a star named after our team as part of our win!”
In winning, Project Bucephalus secured a place at the First LEGO League LEGOLAND California International Open in May 2019.
“The team will compete against some of the best teams in the world, increasing their skills even further,” Mr Clark said.
“They will meet with children from other countries and cultures, increasing understanding and tolerance.
They will learn lessons in teamwork, humility, patience and good sportsmanship – all while having a tremendous amount of fun with STEM and setting skills that will last them a lifetime.”
Project Bucephalus has started a GoFundMe page to help raise money for the trip to the US.