FLL tournament at Dominic

STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics

STEAM is an educational approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking. The end results are students who take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem-solving, embrace collaboration, and work through the creative process. These are the innovators, educators, leaders, and learners of the 21st century!

At Dominic College we have been finding ways for our students to explore and develop skills to be successful 21^st century citizens in a rapidly advancing world.

3-2-1 Lego!

The First Lego League Hobart Regional Tournament was held at Dominic College on Saturday 18 November. FIRST® LEGO® League is a competition catering for upper-primary and lower-secondary school students. Every year, teams of up to 10 students build, program and compete with a robot, while also learning about a modern problem in science and engineering and developing solutions for it. What FIRST® LEGO® League teams accomplish is nothing short of amazing. It’s fun. It’s exciting. And the skills they learn will last a lifetime.

The teams!

10 teams from various schools and community organisations competed throughout the day. Teams averaged 6-10 members with team members being students aged between 9-16 yrs old. Teams were DC Big Micro Project and DC Waterworks (Dominic College), Team Molesworth (Molesworth Primary), Emmanuel (Emmanuel Christian School), Jeffrey (Holy Rosary Catholic School, HuonLinc (Huonville Community), Glen Huon Geeks (Glen Huon Primary), #Hydroid Plumber Squad (Sacred Heart College), UTAS Robotics Red and UTAS Robotics White (UTAS). Some teams have competed in FLL before but many were competing for the first time, having been successful in obtaining a grant from First Australia to compete as rookie teams this year.

The Judging!

Each team was judged in 3 main areas (Research Project, Core Values and Robot Design) along with competing in the 3 rounds of the Robot Game. The theme this year was Hydrodynamics so the challenges on the table were all based around water and the teams had prepared research projects around this theme as well. Our judges were a variety of educators, engineers and students with a keen interest in robotics. Some were first time judges and some were experienced judges from Robotics Tasmania.

The results!

At the end of the day Trophies were awarded to the winning teams in 4 main areas along with the overall Champions Trophy. Here are the results:

Research DC BMP (Dominic College)
Core Values HuonLinc
Robot Design Glen Huon Geeks
Robot Performance (Robot Game) Team Molesworth (Molesworth Primary School)
Champions Trophy Team Molesworth (Molesworth Primary School)

Congratulations to Team Molesworth who were a rookie team competing in FLL for the first time. They are eligible to compete at the Australian National FLL Championship being held in Sydney at Macquarie University on 2 & 3 December 2017.

Core Values!

All teams should be proud of how they competed on the day. By embracing the Core Values, participants learn that friendly competition and mutual gain are not separate goals, and that helping one another is the foundation of teamwork.

• We are a team.
• We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.
• We know our coaches and mentors don't have all the answers; we learn together.
• We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
• What we discover is more important than what we win.
• We share our experiences with others.
• We display Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition® in everything we do.
• We have FUN!

Dominic College would like to thank all the judges and volunteers (especially our wonderful parents and high school students) who helped to make this year’s FLL Hobart Regional Tournament a success.

Mrs Selina Kinne - Director of Teaching and Learning K-10