A group of Copperfield College students have been working so hard, they’ve started thinking a bit like robots.
The Sydenham students have built a robot capable of picking up objects – a challenging task, according to tech teacher Ita Altas.
“It’s very difficult – they’re supposed to design it so it can pick up 20-centimetre balls and cones,” she said.
They’ve spent the past two school terms working on the machine they will put to the test this Friday at a robotics tournament at the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre.
The team will play eight qualifying “matches” against Camberwell High School and St Mary’s Coptic Orthodox College. The matches will test the robots’ ability to operate autonomously for 15 seconds, after which time the students are allowed to manually control them to score as many balls as possible.
Ms Altas says the students formed a robotics club last year and have spent hours working on the project in their own time, after school and at weekends, in the lead-up to the tournament.
The robot tournament is being held as part of National Manufacturing Week, which runs from May 9 until May 12.
