National FLL Finals - we're second in New Zealand!

We are thrilled to announce that the 'Springston Strikers' have been awarded a second place Champions Award at the National First Lego League Finals in Auckland this weekend. This means they were in second place overall across all aspects of the competition. A fantastic result, with 19 teams entered from around New Zealand. Congratulations to Oliver, Freddie, Haidee, Georgia, Dylan and Jack!

It was a huge day of robotic challenges, questioning about robot design and programming, presentations of their inquiry, interviews, and teamwork presentations and challenges. It is amazing what our students can achieve! 

Getting started in our Pit area.

Discussing the score in our first practice round.

Everyone is part of the interview about robot design and programming.

Waiting to take part in Round 2 of the robot game.

Our amazing Auckland family supporters.

Time for a team photo after the rounds are complete.

Robot Game final scoring - 3rd place.

Proudly holding the Champions Award Trophy for 2nd place overall.

Champions Award Trophy for Second Place.

The Award.

The Coach's Team Hat!

The 2013 Challenge theme is announced (photo by A. Ward).

First Lego League is a robotics program for students aged 9 to 14, which is designed to get children excited about science and technology - and teach them valuable employment and life skills. The competition involves programming an autonomous robot (using the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robot set) to score points on a themed playing surface (this year based on 'Senior Solutions' - about the issues around aging), creating an innovative solution to a problem as part of their project, all while being guided by the FLL Core Values. More than 20,000+ teams from over 70 countries take part each year.

Winning teams from each country are invited to attend the World Festival in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in 2013. We are very proud of our second placing.

The video below shows Round 1 of the Robot Game where our team attained its best score of 368 points, putting it in third place for this section of the FLL challenge. The Robot Game is only one part of this amazing competition.

Thanks to the MANY people who supported the team in so many ways throughout the past 10 weeks of the competition and to Jason Kyle of Kiwi First for organising this event in New Zealand.

See our LEGO robot in action today!

Come and see our LEGO robot doing its missions at 3 pm today in the Library. This will be a short demonstration and you can ask our team about their project, too! They're off to the national FLL Finals in Auckland this Saturday.

Working Bee 24 November - important update

The working bee for Saturday 24 November is cancelled as the concrete truck is unavailable. Concrete will be poured on Monday morning (early) if you are able to help Craig, please contact him.

Results of our Moviemaking Competition Term 3 2012!

The Noun Project

 The finalists have been selected by teachers, and now the winners have been chosen! 

Congratulations to all who entered - it was great to have one entry from a family, and another that involved a cross-section of ages across the school. Some entries were made at home, and others during class time. There were fine examples of animation, moving images, and still photography, combined to inform or entertain viewers. There was great humour in some movies, and others were of a more serious documentary style. For many, this was their first effort at movie-making and their story-telling was impressive. 

Please view the list of finalists and winners - I won't spoil the surprise here on the News Blog!

Unfortunately, we cannot show all movies online at this stage, but all are available at School in the Student Home Drive on our network. Ask your teacher to play the movies for you in class.

We're looking forward to viewing more of your moviemaking creativity in future!

School Newsletter 15 November 2012

'Champions Award' for our FLL Robotics Team!

The alarms were set for 6:15 am this Sunday morning, as five of our families readied their children to be up and ready to go for the start of the First Lego League's (FLL) robotics tournament at Chisnallwood Intermediate at 8:00 am. This year's theme was about the problems the elderly face through the aging process - 'Senior Solutions'.

The children held it together through a full day of Presentations and interviews about their Project Inquiry and their innovative solution to a real-world problem, a team-work challenge, an interview about their understanding and practice of the FLL Core Values, further interviews about robot design, programming and development, and then on top of that 3 opportunities to run their robot over a raft of challenging missions and select the best score..... phew!.... The team was still holding their heads high at 4 pm for the Award Ceremony. And yes, all this is about having FUN!

We are delighted to announce that our very own 'Springston Strikers' have come out on top with the 'Champion's Award' for the Christchurch Regional Event. To achieve this very special award, the team had to perform well across all areas of the FLL Competition. The Award recognises a team that embodies the FLL experience, by fully embracing the Core Values while achieving excellence and innovation in both the Robot Game and Project.

Congratulations to: Oliver G, Freddie G, Jack M, Georgia G, Haidee M and Dylan S for their strength of character, dedication to the entire programme, and their pursuit of excellence.

The team now looks forward to travelling to Auckland on 24 November for the National Finals of what is actually an international competition, with the World Festival being held in St Louis, Missouri, USA in April 2013.

We'd like to thank all the people who helped the team achieve this result: Charles Manning (Mentor), our Elderly Partners (Steve and Gary), Dr Stefanie Gutschmidt (University of Canterbury Mechanical Engineer), Nicki Singer (Anthony Wilding Retirement Village), Jenny (Parkinson's Disease and MS Society), Kathleen (Nurse Maude Health and Mobility Shop), Ned Dawson (plastics and springs manufacturer), class teachers and Liz for generously allowing the team out of class time for preparation, and all the parents involved who supported everything they did.

School Newsletter 5 November 2012