There was a meeting of the minds this week when our national medal winning Robotics team visited the work place of Trade Me to exchange ideas!

Staff at Trade Me were curious to understand how the students go about programming their robots. For our students, it was a chance to gain insight into how coding and programming operates in the work place and to understand where their developing IT skills could take them.

In preparing for the Auckland and National Robocup earlier in the year, each of our teams had built different robots to enter the various categories of the competition, applying their engineering knowledge and skills. They not only built robots that could perform the required tasks but also created the programming to precisely control the robot autonomously; any modifications to the robots meant altering the computer programme to suit the sensors.  The students showed the Trade Me staff how their robots are programmed to play a game of soccer. In the soccer competition, two robots need to work together to protect the goal, attack the opposition, gain the ball and score across the ‘field.’ They also demonstrated some of the other skills they had learnt for other categories of the competition they had entered such as ‘rescues.’

The students shared a pizza lunch with staff and were proud to receive a clapping standing ovation before they left, brimming with enthusiasm from what proved to be a most enjoyable exchange of ideas. Our thanks to parent, Mr Vincent Dirks who arranged this fantastic opportunity for the team.

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