Dear Bloggers,

 

  Last Saturday our team of 6 girls from years 5 and 6 participated in the

National First Lego League Competition

We competed against 37 other teams from all over Australia.

This took our Gifted and Talented extension to a whole new level.

Here is a photographic recall of the day.

The Opening Ceremony set the tone for the day showing all there would be lots of fun but also serious competition.

One third of the marks were awarded for the ROBOTIC COMPONENT.  This was made up by the ‘Robotic Games’ and  an  interview with the judges where the girls discussed their robot design and programming.

The robotic games were extremely challenging but lots of fun.  The girls had 3 rounds of 2 and a half minutes where the autonomous robot had to score as many points as possible.  They found this stressful yet very thrilling as loud music blarred, large crowds watched and people cheered.

The girls worked hard at the practice tables throughout the day.

The team were very pleased with their performance in the robot judging as they had improved since the Regional Competition.  Well done ladies!!! Improvement is what it is all about!!

Wow the competition at National Level was mindblowing especially as the competitors were up to 16 years of age and had entered FLL many times before.  We all felt very inspired by the great work of  the other teams…..(although secretly often a little overwhelmed).  We certainly collected some ideas for next year!!!  One of the teams met after school 3 times a week and worked until 9pm at night!!! Another team was home schooled and worked constantly on the FLL challenge.  We were very privileged to be amongst such a high achieving cohort……Gordon East Gifted and Talented extension was certainly being extended.  I was fortunate enough to speak with some of the coaches from the teams who qualified for internationals and they shared some valuable insights.  I plan to liaise  with them further.

Here are some photos of our competitors.

The second third of the marks came from the Research Project where the teams had to choose a FLL question and innovatively create ways of teaching this to others.

Our girls’ FLL question was, ‘How to teach others about what is in fast food’.  The girls were concerned about the level of obesity in Australia and the fact that people were not listening to how bad for you fast foods are. This is where the team name ‘Robotic Foodies’ came from.  Georgia did a fabulous job designing the team T-shirts that you see in the photos.  The girls created a blog and a web site about Fast Food.  They carried out taste testings, made and edited videos, created a poster,  interviewed a Dietician and wrote and choreographed a song and dance about Fast Food that they performed.  On the few days leading up to the Nationals over 1000 people from all over the world visited the website.  Well done girls!!!

The final third of the marks involved judging the students’ Core Values including Gracious Professionalism.

Here is the marking rubric out lining how this works.

Here are our girls having some fun.

The day was lots of fun yet stressful and action packed with highs and lows.  The girls showed resilience, tenacity, team work  and gave their complete best in all areas of the competition.  Well done champs…we’re all proud of you.

They walked away from the day with ‘National Medals’ and a wealth of invaluable learning experiences. (So did their teacher/coach ).

 

Ms Simmonds (Principal of GEPS) was there for the whole day providing invaluable support…thanks Jen.

GEPS certainly is a great school !!!

Thanks for calling by

 

Mrs Garlick