This year has been a rebuilding phase where we have seen all of our established members enter their Year 13 year.

This has meant, that with the weight of study, those students have headed onto their own futures and left behind a fledgling group of Year 9s. Thanks to Mr Riddell the Year 9 students now attending Robotics were recruited from two very successful EPro8 teams. Emma Dickson, Jessica Borcherds, Maya Livermore-Lewis, McKenzie Walker, Renee Drury, Zoe Le Groot, and Hannah Kana began their VEX Robotics journey in July 2022. We were fortunate to have Andrew Kerrison, Kiwibots Regional Coordinator, attend 2 sessions with the students where he outlined the 2022-23 World Series game and the mechanics of their first build. The students are working across two teams and have elected to build the Hero-bot first, which will enable them to gain familiarity with the components and how they lock together.

VEX Robotics in an international competition where students from high schools and University pit their design and build capabilities against others from all over the world. In May of every year, a new game is released. The game consists of a Blue and a Red Alliance both made of two Teams. The two alliances work together to score goals and avoid penalties acting both offensively and defensively against the other Alliance. Each year the way to score goals changes, so Teams must analyse the game rules and figure out the best way to win!

Canterbury Robotics (put the website here) is competing at the highest level already with Burnside, Christchurch Boys’ and St Andrews’ students qualifying to go to Texas to compete. Our new teams have the potential to go as far. They are well supported by Mr Riddell and Ms Boxall and will participate in training, build days and scrimmages in the coming months! Texas here we come!