Robotics
It’s been a bumper two weeks for robotics with four competitions. Pymble have qualified more teams into a range of National competitions, a massive effort and a reward for their dedication and hard work across. Unfortunately, not all teams can make Nationals; however, the 2023 build season has been our best yet, with quality robots produced by all teams across all programs.
Year 9 to 12 FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Sydney Regional
Pymble Ladies’ College hosted the FIRST Tech Challenge Regional last weekend in the Junior School. Five Pymble teams competed with four making it to Nationals.
The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) a highly technical competition where students are first introduced into the world of CAD and coding in JAVA. It is a rewarding jump from VEX systems in Year 7 and 8 (where students use prefabricated parts) to FTC where they design and build the parts themselves.
Our Year 9 students made this brave jump to FTC, proving the power of believing in yourself, being persistent, and using every moment available during a robotics session to learn and improve pays dividend. Consequently, these Year 9 girls have been an integral part of our best FTC season ever achieving more than our mentors could hope for.
Four Pymble teams made the playoffs, with an all-Pymble team making the grand-final: 18362 Shark Sub, 18359 Robo Ducks, 12554 Double Shot Expresso.
In the grand-final, against a Barker and Wollongong Alliance, Pymble posted their best scores against the most competitive robots in Australia and were close to winning one their matches. An amazing effort by our rookie teams. They finished 2nd place overall in the Tournament, our best result ever in this competition.
Four of the twelve teams that qualified for Nationals, were Pymble teams.
Please congratulate these teams and their achievements:
12554 Double Shot Expresso (Finalist Alliance Award and Qualifications for Nationals) – Amelie Muir (Year 10) Jasmine Li (Year 10) Sabrina Rolinek (Year 10) Grace Ho Ollisha Muthukada (Year 9) Allison Wang (Year 9)
18359 – Robo Ducks (Qualification for Nationals) – Mulan Xu (Year 10) Rachel Chan (Year 10) Aria Patel (Year 9) Thinara Siriniwasa (Year 9) Katrina Lin (Year 9) Charlotte Ford (Year 9) Isabella Xu (Year 9)
18360 Definitely NOT the Geese – Sophie Wang (Year 10) Emma Eaton (Year 10) Olivia Clifford (Year 10) Samantha He (Year 9) Jessica Wang (Year 9) Lisa Wang (Year 9)
18363 Pandora’s Box (Finalist Alliance Award and Qualifications for Nationals) – Maya Garg (Year 9) Sophia Chang (Year 9) Teresa Sun (Year 9) Annie Wanrong Luo (Year 9) Ariana Bansal (Year 9) Emma Du (Year 9) Vicky Hu
18362 Shark Sub (Finalist Alliance Award and Qualifications for Nationals) – Ang-ya Koo (Year 9) Rachel Moon (Year 9) Ashley Chow (Year 9) Isabella Nyguen (Year 9) (Year 9) Ann Kyle (Year 9) Sophia Chen (Year 9) Ayana Sapra (Year 9)
Year 5 and 6 VEX IQ Skills only Tournament and Tournament 2
Three Year 5 and 6 teams competed with Knox Grammar School in a remote tournament. All teams posted their highest scores on the worldwide rankings. This was completed at Pymble, with the teams consisting of:
6510F VEX Koalas (Valerie Zhao Year 6, Nicole Fan Year 6, Chloe Shao Year 6, Elaine Zhang Year 6)
6510H Bobot (Kathy Wang Year 6, Yuecheng Xu Year 6) qualifying for Nationals.
Later that week, all our VEX IQ teams competed at Barker for the second Qualifying Tournament. Using the weeks preceding this competition to improve their robot.
6510J UHB (Kiara Excel Year 5 Oriana Fenton Year 5) posted some great programming scores, venturing into the top five for the start of the competition.
Teams 6510B (Sophia Wong Year 5, Audrey Wyldhill Year 5, Olivia Chan Year 5), and
6510N (Angela Mao Year 5, Jing Yuan Liu Year 5, Selina Jiang Year 5, Arianna Ng Year 5, Jennifer Xu Year 5, Sophia Felizzi Year 5) qualified for the finals for the first time; a great achievement for teams in their rookie years.
6510C VEX Vegetables (Lily Xing Year 6, Scarlett Wong Year 6) – despite a valiant effort to build a whole new robot unfortunately had to compete with their ‘old’ robot, posting their best scores and making finals.
6510M Pymble Tinkers (Sophie Kidd Year 6, Annabella Bayfield Year 6) also made improvements to their robot and team to deservedly win the Design Award and qualify for Nationals.
Congratulations to these teams for winning awards and qualifying for Nationals:
6510M Pymble Tinkers (Sophie Kidd Year 6, Annabella Bayfield Year 6) – Design Award and National Qualification
6510F VEX Koalas (Valerie Zhao Year 6, Nicole Fan Year 6, Chloe Shao Year 6, Elaine Zhang Year 6 – Build Award
Year 7 and 8 VEX Robotics Competition and Tournament 2
Fourteen Pymble Teams entered the second VEX Robotics Competition at Barker College. Despite achieving a lower result than the previous competition; Pymble’s robots were stronger, and some ill luck made qualification for the finals more difficult. Nonetheless, all teams competed with pride and determination and posted their best score of the season with six teams making the final rounds.
65100C Pymble Primos continued their amazing season and won the Excellence award, the highest honour at a competition. 651000M Defenestration, with so much determination managed to win the Amaze Award and eventually received a Nationals qualification; a deserved award considering their robot was damaged days earlier through no fault of their own. 65100J Spanish Luigis won the Judges Award, for their team work, attitude and impressive composure.
Please congratulate these achievements:
65100C Pymble Primos – Abani Dhaliwal (Year 7), Alice Mao (Year 7), Annabelle Li (Year 7), Kitty He (Year 7) – Excellence Award
65100J Spanish Luigis – Jessica Xu (Year 8), Jessica Zhai (Year 8), Jocelyn Ying (Year 8), Meimei Jiang (Year 8) – Judges Award
65100M Defenestration – Amelia Carlan, Charlotte Henderson (Year 7), Jemma Hung (Year 7) – Amaze Award
Nationals Qualification based off Awards and World Rankings
65100A The Pymble Peashooters – Anna Le (Year 8), Katherine Lee (Year 8), Iris Li (Year 8) – Qualified for Nationals
65100C Pymble Primos – Abani Dhaliwal (Year 7), Alice Mao (Year 7), Annabelle Li (Year 7), Kitty He (Year 7) – Tournament Champions and Innovate Award winners. Qualified for Nationals.
65100E Berries in Space – Celine Liu (Year 7), Jenny He (Year 7), Olivia Moon (Year 7), Jessica Shi (Year 8)
65100F The Teletubbies – Grace Beck (Year 8), Penelope Danziger (Year 8), Michelle Pan (Year 8), Rosa Kim (Year 8) – Excellence Award. Qualified for Nationals.
65100G Rui’s Bros – Audrey An (Year 8), Lexi Zhang (Year 7), Miranda Chen (Year 7)
65100H Mia Squared – Catherine Zheng (Year 7), Mia Chan (Year 7), Mia Zhang (Year 7), Nicole Jiang (Year 7), Ranalee Siriwardana (Year 7)
65100J Spanish Luigis – Jessica Xu (Year 8), Jessica Zhai (Year 8), Jocelyn Ying (Year 8), Meimei Jiang (Year 8)
65100K Thina’s Churners – Elysia Sun (Year 8), Imogen Wu (Year 8), Lisa Wang (Year 8), Lucy Xie (Year 8)
65100M Defenestration – Amelia Carlan (Year 7), Charlotte Henderson (Year 7), Jemma Hung (Year 7), Nicole Zhang (Year 7)
65100N Pymble Guppies – Varada Vinay (Year 7) Nazgol Koochakzadeh (Year 7) Isha Satpathy (Year 8)
65100P Uno Reverse – Averie Sun (Year 7), Lillian Wang (Year 7), Sophie Guo (Year 7), Xiran Rong (Year 7)
