Two Middle School teams proudly represented Glasshouse Christian College in this year’s RoboCup Lego Spike Prime Challenge, themed “Worlds of Discovery,” achieving an outstanding double podium finish with second and third place.
This national competition challenged students to design, build, and program a robot aligned with the inspiring theme. In addition to demonstrating their robot’s functionality via video, teams submitted detailed learning journals showcasing their planning, ideation, coding development, and teamwork.
Out of 143 teams across Australia, entries were split by states and territories, with Queensland teams recognised as some of the strongest in the competition. Judges commended our students for their thorough background research, innovative concepts, and high-quality journals, which featured both digital and hand-drawn prototypes, as well as strong evidence of collaboration and creative problem solving.
Second place went to Team S.Corp, consisting of Year 8 students Sean Barrett, Isaac Choi, Oscar Landrie, and Byron Lange. Their scorpion-inspired cave crawler robot was designed to explore the vast, largely unmapped cave systems beneath the Earth’s surface — an underground “world of discovery” with the potential to reveal new species, microorganisms with medical value, and rare minerals that could advance future technology. Featuring terrain-scanning legs, a sample-scooping tail, and a built-in mapping system, their robot impressed judges with its originality, thoughtful design process, and technical execution.
Third place was awarded to Hovercraft Nimbus, made up of Sean Chiramel, Jacob Ferrari, and Xanda Masterson from Years 8 and 9. This team envisioned a futuristic hovercraft exploring the uninhabited planet LPH-1440b in the year 2100. Identifying hovercrafts as ideal for traversing unknown terrain, the team explored scientific principles of gas pressure and lift, and mimicked fan propulsion and skirt design using Lego. Their final build featured a compact motorised system with a low-friction structure, shaped through extensive research and prototyping.
As part of their success, the teams earned $500 and $250 Modern Teaching Aids (MTA) vouchers, which will be used to further develop and expand our school’s robotics program.
Congratulations to all students involved for their creativity, collaboration, and STEM excellence!
Lisa Allum, High Potential Development Coordinator
