Year 6 become international finalists in iCool Robotics competitions
On 27 June, eight of our Year 6 girls participated in the ‘International CoSpace Online (iCool) Challenge 2020’. This event was organised by the ‘RoboCup Asia-Pacific’ international committee to provide an opportunity for students around the world to take part in CoSpace Virtual Robotics Challenges remotely, from home, during this difficult period. Over 600 students from 25 different countries (and every continent apart from Antarctica!) competed in a variety of categories and age groups.
The competition began with a Qualifying Round of the ‘CoSpace Rescue U12 Category’ during the evening of Tuesday 23 June, and after a very intense coding session, all eight of our girls successfully submitted their programs and qualified to progress to the next round.
The main part of the competition took place the following Saturday, over a 24-hour period, with the new challenge released online at midnight on the Friday night. Our girls spent a large part of the day developing their programs and adapting them to the new challenge to get the highest score possible, with the last program being submitted at shortly before 10.00pm! The girls were competing as individuals rather than as a team but, in true St Mary’s spirit, this didn’t stop them from encouraging and supporting each other via Microsoft Teams throughout the day.
We are delighted to report that four of the girls, Anna T., Sissi H, Tuppence J-K and Tess F., were named as ‘Finalists’, in recognition of their exceptional performances, with scores well in excess of 1000 points amassed during a six minute match!
As the highest scoring UK entrant, Anna T. then competed in a virtual match against the highest scoring entrant from Iran. After a tense match, her robot emerged victorious with 1060 points to her opponent’s 920! This meant that she finished in 3rd Place in the ‘iCool Challenge 2020 CoSpace Rescue U12 Category’. Many congratulations to her on this incredible achievement in an international-level competition!
Well done to all of the girls for their hard work and perseverance in coming to grips with the difficulties of competing remotely against other students from all over the world, and for their determination not to let a Global Pandemic prevent them from competing at international level!