RoboCup success
On Tuesday 26 June and Wednesday 27 June our Year 5 & 6 RoboCup Junior Teams competed extremely successfully in the National Finals of two competitions.
Our Year 6 girls participated in the prestigious 'RoboCup Junior UK National CoSpace Championship' and, after a very closely fought competition, we are pleased to announce that one of our teams achieved 3rd Place Overall - Charlotte B. and Kate K. They were presented with a beautiful glass trophy and a certificate. Two of our teams were awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Innovative Programming Strategy’ category and we also received ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Best Technical Interview’ category. In addition, we were awarded the ‘Best Poster Presentation Award’ for our visual explanation of the ‘learning journey’ that the girls have undertaken since their participation in the ‘Taster Day’ back in October, their strategies for success and their ambitions for the future, as well as a ‘Highly Commended’ in the same category. Finally, one of our teams was awarded the ‘Teamwork’ Award. The event involved a programming and development session followed by a competition against teams from other schools. The Primary Championship was contested by a total of 41 teams from all over the country. The teams had to program their virtual robot to compete 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 eight-minute competition time and bonus points were awarded for specific actions. The girls participated in five rounds, based upon a league system, as well as a ‘Technical Interview’ and a previously unseen ‘Technical Challenge’.
Our Year 5 girls participated in the ‘RoboCupJunior Line Tracking UK Primary Championship’. The competition involved programming ‘CrumbleBot’ physical robots to follow a line along a series of widely differing routes, as quickly as possible. Successfully navigating the routes required a mixture of precision and speed, with a strict ten minute time slot for programming, testing and completing the time trial on each track. Each team competed in time trials on fourteen different tracks, took part in a ‘Pursuit Knockout Competition’ (similar to Olympic velodrome events, but using robots!) and participated in a ‘Technical Interview’. The Primary Championship was contested by a total of 28 teams. We are delighted to report that our teams achieved the fastest times on the ‘Marathon Challenge’, the ‘Mountain Challenge’ and the ‘Spiral Challenge’ and finished in 2nd Place in the ‘Pursuit Knockout Competition’. We also received the ‘Teamwork Award’ and were ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Best Poster Presentation Award’.
The girls from both Year Groups showed incredible levels of concentration, perseverance, teamwork and sportsmanship throughout very long, intense and nerve-wracking days. Their behaviour was exemplary and they were great ambassadors for the school, receiving many complimentary comments from the organisers.
