A Superpowered Display by Mount St Patrick Primary School, Murwillumbah

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Mount St Patrick Primary School, Murwillumbah, experienced success at the 2022 FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition. (27 November 2022)

Congratulations to Mount St Patrick Primary School, Murwillumbah, for their terrific success at the 2022 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, #STEM) Lego League Robotics Competition.

The FIRST Lego League Challenge has teams of up to 10 students aged 9 to 16, designing, building, testing, and programming a Lego robot that can complete missions on a tabletop course. In addition to creating a robot, teams also have an innovation project to present to judges. 

The exciting opportunity has been very popular with Mount St Patrick Primary students since the school started competing in 2018. Mount St Patrick entered two teams of Year 6 students  - the TURBINE EINSTEINS and the STORM TROOPERS.

After a successful campaign at the Regional qualifiers, the teams qualified for the National event in Brisbane in November 2022. The teams competed against 40 teams from both primary and secondary schools around Australia. 

'Both teams have worked so hard. The feedback from the judges was so affirming, and they were impressed and moved by the teams' compelling presentations,' said coach and Year 6 teacher Tim Waugh.

The theme for the competition, 'Superpowered,' required the students to research alternatives to fossil fuels and enabled the Mount St Patrick teams to use their experience of the 2022 Murwillumbah floods to make powerful cases for the use of renewable energy sources. 

The Turbine Einsteins won the Breakthrough Award. This award celebrates the significant process of confidence that the team displayed during the competition and their demonstration of the FIRST Core Values of teamwork and discovery. 

'Being part of this has been the best experience of my life,' said Year 6 Jake Prowd.

Congratulations to the team and their coach on the hard work and dedication to gaining real-world problem-solving skills and building a better future together.