National Robocup Competition report

Over Friday 6 - Sunday 8 October, the Maroos competed in the Robocup Junior National robotics Championship at MSAC, a three day robotics competition. After our win at the state championships we decided to enter into the national competition. 

Over the holidays the team spent time designing, building, coding and testing a goalie and attacker robot to score goals and give us the best chance possible at Nationals. 

The competition follows a round robin format where the 29 teams that were entered were split into pools of 7 or 8. Saturday, which was the first competition day, was a humbling and good learning experience for the team. Despite some wins and losses on the first day we were able to make it into the top 16(13th) putting us in the finals for Sunday which followed an elimination format.

Our first finals match on Sunday was up against one of the top teams, which we lost to 9-3 the previous day. Due to improvements we made in the morning to the robots, we beat them 7-5, which put us into the quarter final match which we ended up winning..

The semi final match against Rossmoyne went to overtime, unfortunately, we couldn’t take them out but we made it to the bronze medal match.

The bronze medal match was really close as well, leading to a tie game and overtime. Due to the team staying calm under pressure, the team won with a golden goal in the last 15 seconds, which made us the 2023 third place winners at the National championships. 

Despite the team having a disappointing start, due to resilience and dedication they were able to make a comeback and secure the podium finish. 

Thanks to the school for the support and also to the teachers who have supported us along the way: Dr Denney, Mr Mackinnon and Mr Chisholm.

The Maroos

~ Christian Frentiu, Sharane Gowritharan, Binadie Jayasinghe, Nicholas Rowe, Skye Sriratana