Robotics Students Prepare for Competition and Ready Themselves for a Technological Future

Technology provides us with a gateway to explore opportunities and information. The internet, in particular, has opened up the world with cross-cultural communication and information sharing. However, technological innovation and exploration aren’t always confined to screens. Some of the greatest advancements have been derived from building devices that perform pre-arranged tasks. In fact, robots of some form or another have been used in our daily lives for decades. They allow us to make movements we couldn’t naturally produce, to do jobs too dangerous or technical for humans to perform, to make businesses more efficient, and sometimes they just make life easier, allowing us to invest our time in more important endeavours.

The Robotics Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) is an after-school programme offered at YCIS Pudong Century Park Campus, which gives participating students the chance to discover modern-day robotics. It also gives the students the chance to build and programme an actual robot. The Robotics CCA serves as a fantastic opportunity to introduce students to coding and control systems, which are taught in a fun and educational way with the hope of providing the students with a head start in this increasingly-important area of technological development.

In September, YCIS Pudong students from the Robotics CCA participated in a Robotics conference in Suzhou which was attended by a number of international schools. The attendees completed three workshops on programming, one workshop which reviewed the rules for the major, annual Robotics competition which they will compete in this December, and one on the competition’s core values. During their time in Suzhou, the students also competed in a mini competition.

The Suzhou visit inspired the minds of the budding-engineers, who are now preparing for the competition which will take place in Shanghai in December. The competition has two parts: the first being programming a robot to follow a circuit, and the second being a series of three presentations. The presentations will focus on six core values (‘Discovery’, ‘Innovation’, ‘Impact’, ‘Inclusion’, ‘Teamwork’, and ‘Fun’), robot design, and a research problem, which this year revolves around the ‘Into Orbit Project’ theme. The students must “identify a human physical or social problem faced during long-duration space exploration within our Sun’s solar system and propose a solution.” This is no easy feat; however, at YCIS, our students are always ready for a challenge!

As the world develops an ever-increasing reliance on technology, there is much debate surrounding its influence and applications. It can be easy to miss the positives of technology and the pleasure that it can bring to our young learners. The Robotics CCA is an excellent chance for the students to problem solve, to work with their hands, and to overcome scientific and mathematical challenges all in a fun and practical way. It also provides students with a foundation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) that they can take forward in their studies, and possibly even in their future careers.

We look forward to hearing all about the wonderful and “out of this world” solutions our students present in December!