Hunter Cameron Olivia Coulthard, Colter Yuile and Cole Johnstone are the First Lego League national champions. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hunter Cameron Olivia Coulthard, Colter Yuile and Cole Johnstone are the First Lego League national champions. Photo / Warren Buckland
More than 50 teams gathered in Auckland from all over New Zealand to compete in a national robotics championship.
And now, after being crowned the First Lego League National Champions for 2023, a group of four students and their teacher from Taradale Primary School (TPS) will be heading over to the first robotics World Championships in Houston, Texas, as part of the Blackboots team.
The TPS team, named The Taradale Terminators, was made up of Year 6 students Cole Johnstone, Hunter Cameron, Colter Yuile and Olivia Coulthard.
The group said attending the national competition was “nerve-racking but really exciting too ... we didn’t really know what exactly to expect”.
The Hunter Cameron, Olivia Coulthard, Colter Yuile and Cole Johnstone of the Taradale Terminators showing how their robotics coding works. Photo / Warren Buckland
As part of the national champs, the group had to show good core values, do decently well in the robot game (in which they built and programmed their own robots) and create a strong innovation project.
The core values the team had to show were discovery, fun, teamwork, innovation, inclusion and impact.
The team’s teacher and coach Greg English said: “What really impressed me was the way, when things didn’t go right, the kids kept their spirits up and made it fun and were really supportive of each other.”
For their innovation project, the Taradale Terminators had to find a passion they all shared. While researching they figured out they all enjoyed music.
Once they had chosen music they had to find the problem stopping people from enjoying it, then find a creative and initiative solution.
The group had heard of House of Science NZ in Tauranga and decided they wanted to do something similar to fix the music problem, so they spoke to the House of Science CEO to get some tips for their innovation project.
The Taradale Terminators became national champions to make the Blackbots team. Photo / Warren Buckland
The kids created a music box that could be taken around to teach people different kinds of music, with different types of musical instruments in them.
The music box idea along with their robot builds and teamwork helped the group take home the win, even when they thought they may have just missed the mark.
All four team members said they were in a state of shock and thought they had misheard the judges at first.
Still on a high of winning and with end of the school year, the group is excited to get overseas and compete at the world championships.
All four students in the team have now finished primary school and are heading off to Taradale Intermediate next year.
Luckily, they are all staying together and their teacher has already organised with the intermediate for their support in letting the kids go over to America and compete.
The Taradale Terminators belong to a wider robotics club and community called the Nauwhea Hawke’s Bay FIRST Robotics.
Nauwhea is the collective Hawke’s Bay Schools FIRST Robotics collaboration and competition team.
English said: “We couldn’t have done all of this without the help of everyone in Nauwhea throughout the year.”
The Taradale Terminators wanted to say a big thank you to Chris Duggan, founder and CEO of House of Science NZ, for helping with all their questions. They also wanted to thank Boeing for helping by sponsoring entry fees.
The group still has a lot of money to raise to get overseas, so a Givealittle page has been made to give them a shot at getting over and winning the World Championships.
