In WA, there is a range of unique and extreme hobbies, but have you ever heard of competitive robotics?
This past weekend, 109 teams comprising students from all over WA came together to test their robotics skills and compete in the annual Robocup Junior.
Robocup Junior Australia is a nationwide programme that encourages young people to take an interest in scientific and technological fields.
Tim Schmitz, volunteer events co-ordinator, explains that the weekend was an important opportunity for the children to present what they have been working on.
“Our competition is a bit like the Olympics with lots of different challenges all happening all at once”.
In total, there were four main categories in the competition: on-stage performance, rescue line, rescue maze, and soccer.
These events were then split up further to accommodate both the primary and secondary school levels of difficulty.
“The intention of the competition is that students spend months, or in some cases, years working on their robots in advance to get ready for this competition today” says Mr Schmitz.
Notably, the winners of the ‘lightweight soccer’ division had been working on their robot since last October and are hoping to advance onto the national event in Canberra.
Some parents have concerns of the pressure that the children are put under, to which Mr Schmitz acknowledges and says these competitions can help build fine motor skills, but more importantly resilience.
“I mean. We obviously don’t want the kids to be completely upset, but also, it’s good in some ways that we’re trying to create that sort of stressful environment.
So students have to be exposed to risk, so they can learn how to be around risk”.
John Peiris competed with Robocup Junior at international level and has continued his passion by volunteering at this year’s competition
“I view the experiences incredibly valuable and I think that the skills that I’ve learned have carried me forward in everything that I’ve done.”
This year he is refereeing the soccer events, in which two fully autonomous robots compete against each other in the game.
Mr Peiris states that soccer has been his favourite event of the weekend.
“I think it’s the only category that allows you to compete one-on-one with another team.
When they start to get going, you get the exhilarating games, it’s an amazing experience”.
Mr Peiris hopes to go into the medical field and deems the soft skills he gained from his time competing to be invaluable.
This much is true as a RMIT University study show that 87% of jobs in Australia require digital literacy skills.
With the most sought after and valuable being data science, data analysis and coding/ programming.
The State Chair, Auriol Heary explains the competition helps develop a multitude of other skills too.
“So instead of being one area, say maths, or science or arts, it’s actually multiskilled”.
Ms Heary says that because of this, her favourite event is an on-stage performance.
The on-stage challenge offers students to be creative, with teams being scored on their performance and technical interview.
