MEET THESE LEGENDS!
ROBOTICS ROBOTICS IISSUE SSUE
HEAR THEIR SUCCESS STORIES
MEET THE ROBOREBELS OF NAROOMA HS
ignite your passion and LEARN HOW TO START A ROBOTICS CLUB
naroomahighschool
takesover!
guest edited by narooma high school
HELLO! HELLO! ABOUT ABOUT US! US!
Welcome to this special edition of T4L Kids which is all about robotics! We're proud to share our passion for robotics and hope this magazine is full of good advice
We're sharing our perspective for all those schools thinking about starting a robotics club or taking their current club to the next level.
contributors
Our team is the Narooma High School RoboRebels and we've just returned from the incredible FRC World Robotics Championship held in Houston in April this year. We were one of 7 Australian schools taking part in the competition which hosted over hundreds of schools from around the world!
Our club was born in 2015 under the guidance of our teachers - Gayle 'galeforce' Allison and Christina 'Pottsinator' Potts Next year we have even bigger plans for our club (thanks in advance, Ms Fiona Jackson, our principal)
Read on to hear more about our team and our journey - we hope it ignites you!
t4l kids is made on gadigal land Harrison, Linc, Matthew, Kye (Year 12) and Tobie (Year 10) AKA the RoboRebels from Narooma HS
Narooma High School RoboRebels 2023
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With thanks to our Executive Principal Ms Jackson and teachers and the T4L team at ITD.
meet some of the roborebels...
Tobie, 15
Robotics passions: electronics and strategy, design
My hero is my grandfather who was in the Navy - he refurbished old war planes that got rebuilt as commercial planes.
Matthew, 18
Robotics passions: mechanics and problem-solving Fave thing about going to Houston: Being part of something bigger than myself.
Kye, 18
Robotics passions: programming and technology and computers
My tech hero is Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux 'Robotics has taught me many things I wouldn't have gone into otherwise and opened up the field of tech to me and many others.'
Linc, 17
Robotics passions: driving, mechanics, comic relief
My fave band is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
'I like the engineering and innovation, the comraderie and friendships with my teammates.'
Harrison, 17
Robotics passion: all things engineering
Fave robot I've worked on: Each year we make a new robot The 'GW' with its big wooden hooks and arm was awesome. I love the elements of engineering and design with problem solving that robotics gives us. It provides awesome life lessons and lifeskills '
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TOP 5 TOP 5 TIPS TIPS ON ON STARTING STARTING A A ROBOTICS ROBOTICS CLUB CLUB
Have awesome teachers who are willing to spend thousands of hours of their own time on you. Have a community willing to get behind you! Have an ambitious goal - and fail fast and cheap. Be persistent, ride out the storm and problems will be fixed. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Be ready for anything to go wrong, because it will.
(Here's an extra one!) Be supportive and encouraging of your teammates.
Structure is everything, don't work yourself into a field of spaghetti code; you will need to make modifications quickly during the competition! Take advantage of free resources!
Yes, that means reading the documentation. There are lots of resources for general programming and resources for specific competitions.
If you feel like you are over your head, take a break and come back with a refreshed mind, if you can of course!
Reach out for help if you need it, Stackoverflow (all programming) and Chief Delphi (mostly FRC, also FTC and FLL) are great forums/QnA sites for this.
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K y e ' s t i p s ! K y e i s t h e R o b o r e b e l ' s r e s i d e n t p r o g a m m e r 4
GROWING AN GROWING AN IINDUSTRY NDUSTRY
Hear about our STEM missionthe principles that guide us.
One of the biggest issues facing children interested in STEM today is the lack of infrastructure in our country. Which is why robotics is important.
We as a robotics team are dedicated to growing interest and starting the growth of STEM in Australia.
We as a team provide opportunities for kids in a rural areas like ourselves to grow and foster interest in STEM.
We do this by providing outreach days for local primary schools, where we sell our skills and passion for robotics. We do this in hope that we can build an industry where we can grow as a nation.
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THE THE COMP... COMP...
Heading to Texas... Houston, we have a problem....
In April 2023, the RoboRebels headed to Houston for the GRC World Robotics Championship. We were one of 7 schools in Australia (and the only public school!). First impressions of Houston: huge and flat.
In fact, we had loads of problems. Over each day of the competition we were challenged to plenty of builds against other clubs from across the world. Some of the teams had 50 members (we had 5).
'Noodle'
We built Noodle this year, a ground intake robot. It picks up and moves cubes around. It's called Noodle because the electronics are a bit of a mess.
Troubleshooting on the groun
motors that burned out and smoked electrical conversions and wattage changes robots collapsing in on themselves battery charger died
COMP COMP
GLOSSARY GLOSSARY
Pit area: team HQ
Build season: 8 weeks before a competition to strategise your build Scouts - people that gather intel on teams and robots during a competition
Co-op-ertition: cooperative competitions - offering help to other teams
Gracious professionalism: our team mantra
3 FIRST competitions
First Lego League - for late primary and early high students, small robots
First Tech Challenge - between FLL and FRC, introduces Mecchano-like engineering, microwave-sized robots
First Robotics Competition - for senior high school students, huge robots, played on a basketball court-sized field
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On the On the On the pro pro pro sid sid sid
FLL: Programming using scratchlike block-based visual programming
FTC: Programming using either scratch-like visual programming or Java
FRC: Programming using either LabVIEW, Java, C++, or, as of next year, Python!
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Kye talks key programming languages
DOWNLOAD OUR DOWNLOAD OUR PODCAST! PODCAST!
We want you at the forefront of the roborebellion. The RoboRebels give you a step-by-step guide to world domination including inspiration, technology, science, teamwork, DIY punk ethics and a guide to wearing sunglasses indoors.
Are you interested in starting a robotics club at your school? Contact us at Technology 4 Learning!
Technology 4 Learning (T4L) is based at the Information Technology Directorate in South Eveleigh.