Townsville Catholic Education (TCE) has recently purchased a variety of robotics kits to trial in its Catholic schools. To facilitate this, TCE will make the kits available for schools to borrow, rather than incur the cost of purchase. Collection of the kits will be available from the TCE office in Townsville from Term 4 onwards.

In an effort to evaluate the robotics program, St Francis Catholic school was given two kits, a MaBot and a VEX Go. During the term, students were able to explore the MaBot and have constructed creations which are programmed to stop when something is detected in front of the robot. 

To oversee the implementation of this new robotics initiative, Townsville Catholic Education employed Christopher Ruming. During a visit to St Francis, Mr. Ruming aided in the development of a Design Technology curriculum for Year 3 and 4, using the Dash robots. The aim of the unit will be to educate the students about the changes in technology that have occurred in the local cane industry.

As part of the unit, students will also be asked to construct a machine that will complete one of the life cycle tasks of producing cane and to optimise existing features.

This is such an exciting opportunity for students to explore and develop skills in robotics, engineering, and coding. Trialling these robotics can help students understand the complexity of navigating and programming robots and create a learning environment that supports creative problem-solving, collaboration, and technical inquiry.

Students are able to see the applied benefits of robotics and gain an appreciation of the associated science and technology fields.

This is an amazing opportunity for young people to explore and gain an insight into the kinds of innovative activities that robots can undertake and may open doors to potentially pursue a career in the field of robotics and engineering.