By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
ROBOTICS at Hillcrest Christian College has taken an international turn with students set to take on the US.
Hillcrest’s team of six boys took home the most coveted award at the VEX Robotics Australia National Championship on Saturday 5 December.
Having worked hard on their ‘goal shooting’ robot all year, the boys team won the ‘Excellence Award’ which includes an invite and ticket to the VEX World Championships held in Kentucky USA.
Head of science and VEX mentor at Hillcrest Christian College, Simon Taylor, said his students had achieved an amazing feat through their hard work and perseverance.
“We don’t know what robot we’ll take to World’s yet, but I’m sure the boys will come back to school very energised,” Mr Taylor said.
To compete on the world stage is an invite only event, and Mr Taylor said the achievement was a big one for the school.
“I don’t think in college history they’ve had any type of team invited to compete overseas or somewhere like America,” he said.
And the big win has college principal, Gregg Weaver, very excited – unofficially labelling the invite as the “biggest news in college history!”
In alliance with Dandenong High School the Hillcrest boys team also won the tournament challenge – making them the envious all round winners at the Australian Championship.
The VEX robotics group was started as an extra-curricular activity at the college two years ago by Mr Taylor and he said the group had grown, now with a girls team.
“Our girls team also competed at the Australian Championships and got into the semi-finals, they didn’t manage to win any awards but considering they only started this year it was a fair effort,” he said.
With a mixture of genders and ages from Year 9 to Year 12 Mr Taylor said he was extremely proud of his students.
“We recently competed in the Asia Pacific competition at the Show Grounds, there were around 60 teams, most of them from China and the boys took out a judge’s award there as well,” Mr Taylor said.
Once in the US, the Hillcrest team, who will be representing Australia, will put their robot in the ring to compete against 30 other countries.
And with the ‘Robot Control Skills Challenge’ award under their belt from the Australian National Championships, the Hillcrest team is well set.
