Melaleuca Park Primary School’s Warwar Lego League team placed second at the Regional Challenge Tournament behind Glencoe Central Primary School and qualified to compete in the National Lego League South Conference.
The regional competition took place late last year at the Glenburnie Racecourse hosted by the Department of Education Mount Gambier office.
The Warwar Lego League team was made up of Melaleuca Park Primary School Year 5 and 6 students Jackson, Kobii, Liam, Jonah, Djinda, Maliya, Zoe, Audrey and Edwin.
The students also received the Core Values award at the tournament for displaying discovery, innovation, impact, inclusion, teamwork and fun.
The Melaleuca Park students programmed a Spike Lego robot to compete missions against seven other schools.
Warwar Lego League coach Jayde Peacock said the school purchased five Lego Spike robots to support the students to compete in this competition.
“It was the first time students had experienced coding robots, which saw them following instructions to create the robots then add their own elements to support them to complete the identified missions,” she said.
“The robot competes on a field where there are about 15 different missions and teams receive a variety of scores based on the successful completion.
“The students are required to pre-code the robot to complete the mission.
“Edwin was very persistent with his coding and worked hard to secure a high score in the third match to secure our highest score for the tournament.
“He has had a natural interest in coding the robot and has worked really hard to upskill himself.”
Following their success at the regional competition Zoe, Edwin and Audrey competed at the National South Conference in Melbourne where they placed 24th out of 40 schools.
Mrs Peacock said the National South Conference saw Zoe and Audrey be more involved in the coding and they enjoyed the challenge.
“In addition to the robot matches there is also an innovation project presentation, which saw all three of the students share their innovation project with judges,” she said.
“As part of the innovation project presentation students are required to solve a problem posed by Lego League and share their solution and model.”
