Narooma's very own robotics team, the RoboRebels, have been busy over winter promoting science, technology, engineering and maths throughout the region and as far afield as Sydney.
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“The winter months are traditionally the off season for our competition team, but we see this time as the perfect opportunity for raising the profile of our team and increasing awareness of the emerging role that science and technology is having in our lives,” said one of the team's mentors, Christina Potts.
The RoboRebels have a junior and senior team made up of students from Narooma High School.
The team business plan states the vision of the team as follows: “Our long term vision is to create a technology hub in South East NSW where current and emerging businesses, schools, education providers and community experts collaborate on projects that create employment and training opportunities needed to retain young people in our local area.”
Team coach and mentor Gayle Allison said the RoboRebels survived on a combination of grants, donations from generous sponsors including Quota club, Narooma High School support and its Robo Camps.
“We aim to become financially independent. So far this year our donations and Robo Camps have enabled all our robotics students to travel and take part in five competitions,” Ms Allison said.
Our Robo Camps are facilitated and organised by the team members and form the financial backbone of our team, as well as introducing primary school students to the world of robotics.”
The major annual event is the FIRST Robotics Competition held each year in Sydney, teams around the world are given a common game challenge and six weeks in which to build, program and compete in a unique challenge.
Teams must work together sharing knowledge, skills and experience to compete in a competition that has a focus on “co-operation”.
The RoboRebels also competed in the off season event last week known as the Duel Down Under.
“This competition was an opportunity for students to build skills and confidence. The students worked very hard and persevered to build a climbing mechanism and gear collector that resulted in our team being selected in the first ranked alliance for the finals,” Ms Allison said.
Other off season events have included our Junior team achieving success at the Robocup held at Moruya High School and assisting the team for Narooma Primary School and an open day at Narooma Plaza where the teams demonstrated both their Lego Robots as well as the 50kg competition robot, fondly known as Bunsen.
The team will be holding Robo Camps at Narooma High School after school during Term 3. For information on dates and times please search “Robo Camps Narooma” and reserve your place using the Eventbrite website or contact Gayle Allison at Narooma High School on 4476 4377.
