Congratulations to Year 8 students, Charlie Brown, Summer Hawkins, Cooper Henricks, and Alexander Williams (team GENESIS) for their achievements in the 2024 First Lego League Competition.
The theme for this year’s First Lego League was “Submerged,” and it involved a Robotics Game and an Innovation Project. The Robotics Game required students to build, program, and test a Lego robot as they attempted to complete a series of challenges. The Innovation Project focused on students’ ability to research and define a problem related to the ocean and design an innovative solution.
The First Lego League is an established and challenging competition to succeed in. Preparation is recommended to be completed over a 12-week period; however, GENESIS had approximately four weeks to prepare. Students willingly gave up their lunchtimes, remained after school, and undertook work at home to troubleshoot and test their code, create their presentations, and develop their innovative solution. The competition took place at the University of Tasmania Cradle Coast Campus on Saturday, 16 November.
There were 20 teams competing in the Robot Game, which involves three rounds with the best round score used to determine ranking. In the 1st Round, they scored 110 points, but with some reprogramming after a turn at the practice table, their robot was able to complete an extra challenge in the 2nd Round, scoring them 140 points. Unfortunately, they were unable to improve on this in their 3rd and final round, scoring 120 points on that run. They displayed excellent teamwork and sportsmanship throughout the competition, representing themselves and Marist exceptionally well. Despite limited preparation time and this being the first time Marist has competed at the event, GENESIS finished in 10th place.
For the Innovation Project, students focused on the problem of ocean pollution and were able to develop a prototype mobile application. This required them to research, design, and create an interactive application using new software. The app educates users about the damage caused to the ocean by pollution. It also encourages users to collect rubbish from the ocean and waterways by allowing them to track where they collect rubbish, earn points, streaks, and badges, compete in local and national leaderboards, and share their activities with their friends. GENESIS presented this to a panel of judges, explaining the design process, demonstrating the functions of their app, and answering questions about the Innovation Project and also explained their approach to completing challenges in the Robot Game. The team performed incredibly well and were awarded 2nd place for the Innovation Project. This is an incredible achievement given the limited preparation time and considering we were the smallest team participating in the event.
Unfortunately, Cooper was unwell and did not attend on the day, however the team would not have achieved as well without his contributions, particularly when preparing the application prototype. Please congratulate these students if you see them.
Mr Steve King
Head of Digital Technologies