Robotics Clubs are spaces to foster important life skills, like self-confidence, communication, collaboration and leadership as well as computational thinking, the thought processes required in understanding problems and formulating solutions. These clubs provide students of different ages the opportunities to express their skills, knowledge and creativity through digital technologies. Currently, we are running two of these clubs with a third one on the way.
The Senior Robotics Club, for students from Year 6 to Year 10, runs every Thursday after school and aims to prepare students for the robotics competitions where students must demonstrate skills from robot and algorithm design to cooperation and research. First Lego League and RoboCup are currently our aims.
This very week we started the Minecraft Robotics Club, for all Junior School students. This club runs every Monday at lunchtime in the Junior Clubs classroom, located at the centre of the recessed area. With an open-door policy, students can enter the space and explore at any time during lunch. Setup with Raspberry Pi computers, Minecraft allows students to acquire the fine motor skill required to effectively use mouse and keyboard, while learning basic operating system skills, such as safe passwords and file system operations. By playing in a computer network, students cooperate in the design and construction of a common virtual world, experiencing the basics of information systems and networks.
These clubs are known to be a success and it is great to see that the new addition to our School community has proven to be just that. Our first session encouraged students to sit in groups, cooperate, share ideas and debate solutions with each other. Evidence that a strong club community with a sense of identity is on the rise.
