RACING robots might seem like a simple but it’s anything but for students at Junee High School.
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In their first full year competition in the RoboCup, Junee High will head to Sydney for the semi-finals at the end of this week.
Alec Reader, James Hamilton, Andreas Shepherd, Adam Spackman and Anne Russell will be flying the flag for school.
The team earned their position in the semi-finals after knocking over 15 teams from schools around the Riverina including Young and Wagga.
It will be the first time student Anne Russell travels for a school competition and she was looking forward to it.
“It will be a great experience and we’re hoping to win,” Miss Russell said.
“The challenge is getting the robot to work, programming the right light intensity so it can recognise the lines on a track.”
With students using trial and error to get around the challenge, the quickest team to create the right program had the best chance.
For Adam Spackman it’s the programming challenge which was most enjoyable.
He said it can often be a small setting which makes the difference between the robot completing the track and winning and losing.
“At Wagga we had to push a can out of a green ciricle, but when we were pushing it, we found our robot wasn’t wide enough and the can was side tracked,” he said.
“We’re looking forward to testing our skills, we don’t know how good the competition is going to be there.”
Teacher Matt Hands said the RoboCup was all about “thinking outside the box”.
“It’s pretty good for collaboration, students work together as a team,” he said.
Mr Hands said teams were confronted with a problem and had to devise a solution – one that would succeed.
It might sound simple, but Junee’s RoboCup challengers will only have a single shot to collect their points as each team gets a single run on the competition track.
“In the early stages of the semi-final they need to get the most points available,” Mr Hands said.
“There’s a few teams which might have a bit more experience, but there’s no doubt Junee will still do well.”