Robostudents Beat Peers
by Patrick Drabczynski | 7th December 2010
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The boys at Wanganui Intermediate School have the technological future in their hands. Photo / Bevan Conley 061210wcbrcwis01
Playing with Lego has never been more educational or rewarding than it is now, say the young inventors of Wanganui Intermediate School.
Under the guidance of the school's head of technology Andrew Szabo, a group of talented young students have brought the fun of Lego into the realm of serious science and national glory by winning a cluster of medals at a national robotics contest.
Robocup Junior New Zealand is a national schools robotics competition that boasts the best junior scientific talent nationwide with 93 groups of contestants from private and public schools in every city in New Zealand. The “Rescue”, in which students' individual robots must follow an obstacle course designed to mimic a chemical spill situation and "rescue" a tin can within 120 seconds, by removing it from the danger zone and repositioning it, saw the Intermediate boys take the first five places of the seventeen competitors in a complete whitewash in the primary school division.
Similarly, in Robot soccer, where two teams of two robots compete head to head in a miniature soccer match, the WIS boys won gold and silver in the primary division before outshining their older rivals by taking the first two places in the secondary school Rescue division as well.
The boys were overjoyed at their success, which Mr Szabo put down to their total commitment.
"These boys have been training since term one, often doing an hour before school starts three times a week, and at least another hour after classes.
All possible outcomes and problems have been covered so many times it was almost a certainty."
The course that Mr Szabo set up as a side project to the IT department in 2006, is taken by all students.
The former IT specialist says that since its small beginnings as an experimental subject, robotics has been adopted with great enthusiasm by students, parents and school board members alike, who have encouraged its expansion to the point where Mr Szabo is now giving courses to students in schools across Wanganui.
The students use the latest Lego Technics components, which they programme using a sophisticated but self-explanatory piece of software, Lego Mindstorms NXT, which the children pick up the basics of in a matter of minutes, Mr Szabo said.
The robots function using infrared sensors and high frequency sound waves which enable them to "see" their environment and respond to both visual and aural cues.
The children are able to programme the parameters of the robot's vision response, thus controlling its behaviour.
by Patrick Drabczynski | 7th December 2010
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