From The Junior Secondary Head of Department
With Gerard Clark
2023 CQ Robotics Competition
Congratulations to our 2 Toolooa Teams who competed at the 7th annual CQ Robotics Competition today. A special congratulations to the Toolooa Tech Stars, who took out the "Most Persistent Team" award!
The CQ Robotics Competition is a community-based educational initiative that shows school aged students just how much fun science, engineering and technology can be! CQUniversity has hosted this annual event since its inception in 2017. It is a great opportunity to engage with the community and inspire students.
Teams were tasked with assisting the engineers and technicians from Rio Tinto and QAL. to design, construct and program two mechanical systems to keep the sites running. One system was an autonomous robot that will be deployed into the Plant and Warehouse industrial areas to collect materials for sorting, and the other system was an automated sorting, and system which will receive the collected materials and sort them into piles.
Teams were also aiming to achieve sustainability targets through the collection and sorting of green carbon credits, as well as aiming to maintain community cohesion by incorporating into their digital solution an Acknowledgement of Country to the Traditional Owners of the Gladstone Region.
Educational robotics is a relatively new and rich subject incorporating science and technology. It has a multidisciplinary focus across technologies such as computing, mathematics, software programming, electrical and mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, communication, sensor technology, educational technology, image processing and game theory. This is an exciting and engaging competition consisting of different categories such as rescue, soccer and dance. Competing participants are quickly brought into the realities of working with complex and ever-changing real-life environments. They learn to adapt and modify their robotic creations to conform to these dynamic surroundings. In this way, students in the process of constructing and programming robots will impress upon themselves how interesting and exciting science and technology can be
Thanks to Mr Bailey and Mr Jones for their ongoing support of myself and dedication to the STEM Squad. We love to see all the cool opportunities that the kids get to access and look forward to seeing what innovative solutions they can design next.