The Avondale Robotics team is called Binary Blitz.  The team has been going for several years and has been very successful.  It has now won the National Championship, along with several other alliance partners, for two years in a row, with its latest success in March of 2010. The team has also won the programming skills award for 2009-2010. The team has now twice had the opportunity to compete in the VEX World Championship Robotics competition in Dallas Texas, USA.

 

The Robotics team builds robots for competition. It is like basketball for robots.  Every year there is a new game which requires new robots to be built, programmed, and tested before competitions are entered for the new game.  In 2009-2010 the game was called Clean Sweep, and competitions are generally held once a month from August and more frequently between January and March.

 

Students learn a variety of skills ranging from mechanical engineering, software engineering, electrical, tactical, strategic and negotiating skills.  Games are played in alliances with other teams. Usually it is two against two, but after ranking games are played alliances are selected by players to enter the quarter, semi and final matches of each tournament.

 

The Robotics team has no set schedule. It is a case of doing what is necessary to get robots built in time for competition.  Robots evolve during a season and team members put in long hours to become successful.

 

Mr Bruce Tetley and Mrs Cathleen Hepburn coach the team.

 

For more information please contact Mr Tetley: tet@avcol.school.nz