STEAM

ROBOCUP JUNIOR ACT

Some of our MDCC students will be participating in Robocup Junior ACT on 6-7 September. Students will be working on their skills in preparation for this event. Parents can consent and submit payment via the Compass Portal for this excursion.  

Dancing Robot Team: Hannah Reardon, Benjamin Vu, Nicholas Unwin, Sophie Von Mengerson, 

Soccer Team: Ivan Sokolov, Antonio Pailano, Samuel Culley, Joshua Shaw

INQUISITIVE MINDS

Some of our high achieving Year 8 Mathematics students participated in the Talented Mathematicians Workshop alongside other students from regional schools from as far afield as Albury and Griffith. Students worked in teams to solve complex problems in different ways. 

Phoebe Von Mengerson and Ivan Sokolov were amongst the winning teams on the day. Congratulations to all students who participated.

~Click on images to enlarge~

Mrs Courtney Freebody | Leader of Learning and Technology

INTERSCHOOL RIVERINA CODING COMPETITION

MDCC recently participated in the very first Riverina Interschool Programming Competition. Multiple teams from seven Riverina schools competed for the title.

Mater Dei entered two teams into the competition.

The Cobras: Ivan Sokolov, Joshua Shaw and Jessica Baker

The Vipers: Samuel Culley, Charlotte Boyle and Jirrah  Silvestre

The Cobras came first, winning drones and trophies, while The Vipers were second winning Google Home Minis. 

Leading up to the competition, the six of us spent class time with Mrs Freebody completing workshops and challenges from a CSU developed course and Grok - an online coding platform. In the final week, we completed a series of challenges on HackerRank, the website on which the final competition was held. 

On the day of the competition, we arrived at CSU and met up with the other schools’ competing teams. Several people spoke to us about the importance of programming in our fast-paced, modern world. We found out that there are currently 24,000 jobs that require knowledge of IT. 

We also met a physicist who spoke about creating mathematical formulas that were programmed to run radiological equipment. This equipment was being used to better treat cancer patients. We then received a talk from the principle of Computing and Mathematics of CSU and his involvement with students working for Facebook and Google. 

It was an amazing experience to meet new people with the same interests, as well as compete against them while winning awesome prizes! 

Mater Dei Coding Team