Meander Valley roboteers

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AUGUST 2016 | Chere Kenyon

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THE FIELD of Robotics has fuelled the imaginations of youth for generations but it has seemed beyond the reach of most regular people.

Not anymore. A unique club called Metal Minds Robotics Team was started 4 years ago by Harry Heathcote when he was 15 in his parent’s garage at Evandale. Today it operates from its base at the Australian Maritime College in Launceston.

Metal Minds is composed of several different teams depending on age groups and each team operates differently. The Junior team is called the First Lego League (FLL) as they primarily build their robots using programmable lego bricks.

The young people in this group create robots, use mathematical calculations to determine movement, write programming script to make the robots perform these movements, learn teamwork and have fun.

Asuka Woods explains, “Jon is our teacher and we do stuff like a robot following a line and we calculate the circumference of a wheel. We do some maths, robots and programming. Some of us build robots, some of us program them.”

The club embraces the principles of science, technology, electronics and mathematics in producing the robots and they teach Gracious Professionalism.

According to Metal Minds Coordinator, Kathryn Heathcote, “Gracious Professionalism is where no one person is more important than the next, each person on our teams has a role to play and they accept that they must work together to create a winning team.”

This philosophy also extends to their competitors. Kathryn continued, “It is also about the other teams we compete with and against. If another team needs help we will endeavour to help them, even if that means they beat us in competition and the same applies in reverse. This is the ethos of all our teams.” Aaron Fowler added, “The best thing about the club is the teamwork and interaction with other club members. We don’t argue and we work together.”

FLL includes not just the fun of building robots, it also involves learning. Cameron Steer went on to add, “Some of the maths helps me at school. A lot of the time at school we have a robotics program and they sometimes call me in to help out when something goes wrong with the robot.”

This is the first year for the junior club so they are coming up to their first big competition in Hobart.

The FLL team will receive their challenge in August and compete in the Hobart competition around November so they will have around 6 weeks to prepare.

If they win Hobart, they could potentially be eligible for the Sydney competition and from there, the world championships. Kathryn, the Coordinator, added, “We are working hard towards this goal because we are totally independent we have to fundraise or look for generous sponsors.”

If you would like further information please contact Kathryn Heathcote on 0415 866 058 or email metalmindsrobotics @gmail.com.

[udesign_icon_font name="fa fa-camera" color="#000000"] Mike Moores