Footballing robots help students feel comfortable with transition
St Aloysius’ College provided the venue for Islington’s first-ever electronic
robot football competition at the end of the spring term. It was a closely
fought battle that culminated in a nail-biting penalty shoot out between
robots made by Islington secondary and primary school students.
15 students from St Aloysius College teamed up with 16 Year 6 students from
Blessed Sacrament and St Joseph’s primary schools to spend ten weeks making
the robot footballers as part of an after-school project funded by Awards for
All, entitled ‘Electronics Transition Project’.
The aims of the project, co-ordinated by CEA@Islington’s Learning Plus team
and St Aloysius’ Out of School Hours Learning Co-ordinator, were threefold: to
ease transition to secondary school for the primary students and their
families; to encourage empathy skills and mentoring techniques in the
secondary students; and to promote high academic aspirations for all. The
third aim was addressed through a day trip to City University.
The students were given a tour of the engineering department, including
sitting in a flight simulator, controlling a robot, seeing a jet fighter and
getting hands-on with a Yamaha prototype racing car. An IT suite was reserved
for the students, where they built a circuit board on screen that simulated a
traffic light sequence. The trip ended with lunch among the university
students in the canteen, where pupils spoke to a student ambassador about
their ambitions to be nautical engineers (after they’ve been footballers, of
course).
On the way home, the boys from Blessed Sacrament were asked whether they might
consider going to university. The response was a resounding ‘Yes!’ One went on
to qualify his answer with,
‘But not any university - that one!’
The project ended with a celebration evening at St Aloysius College. In front
of family members and staff representatives from the schools and Learning
Plus, a nail-biting knockout competition of one-on-one robot football took
place. The winner was decided, in true crowd-pleasing fashion, with a penalty
shootout.
Kate Wilson, Learning Plus Advisory Teacher, CEA@Islington said: “This was a
really exciting and rewarding project for all involved. It was interesting to
see the students change from week to week. The first Year 6 visit to St
Aloysius was a sobering experience. The excitement and laughter fell off at
the door as they came into an unknown environment. However, by the end of the
first session the students were engrossed in the project, working naturally
and confidently alongside each other. It was great to see all the students
working together well: stripping wires, soldering and mounting motors onto a
chassis.
“Everyone had an achievement to celebrate on the final evening. St Aloysius
now has a few weeks to catch its breath before running the project again with
a second cohort of students!”
For more information, please contact CEA@Islington's Communications Department: