Celebrations: New Robotics Room

Celebrations

New Robotics Room

Beejays at work The completed Robotics room

Recently we remodeled part of the Technology block into a room especially for Robotics. After an initial mini competition to break in the new room we discovered that the sound

reverberations from a crowd made the room uninhabitable.

The costs for conventional materials are exorbitant, Mr Wessels even considered using egg trays (which do work) however, he got some backlash regarding aesthetics.... Luckily our Food Technology room had had some autex lining put in recently by Beejays and they offered to donate some panels to the school. We’ve had some rowdy sessions since and the panels work a treat. Thank you Beejays!!

In light of the new Robotics Room we thought we’d find out a little more about the Robotics Club from some of the

students involved. We asked them to tell us a little bit about

the Robotics Club and what they do:

Emily Aldridge

The robotics club is about teams

building robots and working together so they can go to scrimmages. Robotics is also about coding and programming the robot to be able to drive on its own. I am

in a team which has three other people in it and I am the team leader, this makes me in charge of overlooking designs and making sure that everyone is organised.

Erik Gilbert

In addition to fostering collaborative teamwork and communication, the Ōtūmoetai College Robotics club aims to teach members practical engineering, programming, and design skills. We participate in the Vex Robotics worldwide competition each year, attempting to engineer and build solutions to Vex Robotics challenges and games. I personally am a member of the A-Team, and it is my role as part of said team to contribute to the design, building, and programming of our robot.

Dominik Thwaites

The Robotics club is, in essence, about designing and building robots to compete in annual nationwide competitions. Every week we meet to develop and iterate our ideas with the parts and tools available to us. It is a very social environment where many strong friendships are fostered, so strong even that previous members that have graduated the college periodically return to mentor the newer teams. In the club, I am one of the three most senior members and therefore a role model and leader to the other members. In

a typical session, I will build our robot and converse with my team while also making my way around the junior teams to help them and give them advice where needed.

Liam Venman

The robotics club is about competing in a yearly Vex competition. You create robots in teams of 3-5. You

show up at 8.30 Saturday mornings for 5 hours until 12.30 every weekend. Occasionally the robotic club drive to Auckland to compete in scrimmages to test out the robot.