Halo, Badbot and Speedy Gonzales took over Holy Trinity Lutheran College in Horsham's multi-purpose hall on Friday.
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These were the names students gave the robots they built from lego and infrared sensors, as part of the first ever RoboCup Junior regional event in Horsham.
Holy Trinity technology teacher Adam Engert said it was about giving students relevant skills for their schooling, university and beyond.
"They learned to code and electronics, which is important for literacy, but I think the biggest skills are the design, the problem-solving and teamwork," he said.
"These students have not only coded the robot, they've done research for it and had to problem solve when it doesn't work, which is quite regular. Someone standing in a different position can affect their sensors."
Coding is where people create a specific set of instructions for computers so they can perform a specific task. Year three to 10 students from St. Mary's Catholic Primary School Warracknabeal and St Brigid's College Horsham also participated in this year's event.. Mr Engert said a few more schools were interested, and hoped to bring the event back next year.
"Career-wise, this sort of thing does suit well for anything in the tech industry, but people in all industries are using coding skills for something related to their work," he said.
"The next level is the state championships in Melbourne in August, so we hope to bring a team to that."
Oscar Nuske, a Year 6 student at Holy Trinity, said he enjoyed learning about coding.
"I kind of was interested in robotics before, but it's very fun to be here," he said. "I'll probably keep this up afterwards."
Endless possibilities
Brian Thomas, founder of RoboCup Junior Australia and RoboCup Junior International, attended the event. He said the idea for RoboCup was had by the inventor of the Sony Walkman, Nobutoshi Kihara.
"In 1999, we heard the RoboCup university competition was coming to Melbourne, and we were approached to start up an education competition to complement that," Mr Thomas, who teaches at Geelong's Christian College, said.
"So a group of schoolteachers got together and created a three-tiered competition - Dance, Rescue and Soccer - and from there the students built robots and competed in the first competition in 2000. Since then it's gone on to 63 countries around the world and we also send off a soccer team to the World Robot Olympiad which has another 50-odd countries competing."
Mr Thomas said the competition was receiving state government funding to bring events to regional areas. He said after the state championships, teams could progress to national and international events.
"The RoboCup World Championships are being held in Sydney this year, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility the kids in Horsham could take on the best Iranian team," he said.
"We had teams from Geelong and Colac competing in Thailand last year."
Mr Thomas lived in Horsham between the ages of two and seven, attending Horsham West Primary School.
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