East Manjimup wins fourth interschool robotics competition hosted by Manjimup Primary School

Students from around the Warren-Blackwood region have put their STEM skills to the test in an interschool robotics competition. Manjimup Primary School hosted its fourth VEX Robotics competition on Thursday, with several contest categories allowing students from 10 schools to show off their robotics and coding skills. Challenges included racing, coding a robot to follow directions, using robots to place balls into different areas and moving cubes around the allocated arena. East Manjimup PS was named the winners of the inaugural VEX interschool trophy, nudging out the host school and Balingup PS who finished second and third respectively. Warren-Blackwood VEX Robotics co-ordinator Emma Davidson said the first competition was held in 2021, with organisers trying to add more resources and challenges every year to build students’ skills. “We’ve had a lot more support from Talison (Lithium), and each year, we’ve approached them for more funding and they’ve jumped on board, which has allowed us to buy more challenge equipment,” she said. “This year, we’ve had seven challenges, while last year we had five, and the year before we had four challenges.” Ms Davidson said the inclusion of the coding challenge in this year’s competition was due to the need to develop students’ coding skills and set them up for career skills in the future. “We’ve got that linked industry with Talison, it’s really starting to have that sequence of skills in the students as they’re learning to code, and it’s linking it to the autonomous vehicles used in the mining industry and knowing about those job opportunities,” she said. “It helps building the sequence of steps from primary school that students can carry on through to high school as well.” Manjimup PS principal Damian Lloyd said the opportunity meant kids were able to get social and educational engagement in a different environment. “It’s a fabulous opportunity for the students across the Warren-Blackwood (region) to come together in a priority area for all of us,” he said. “The kids love it and get great engagement out of it, and it’s so good to see them in teams to come and compete.” Mr Lloyd highlighted the competition as a way for the different schools to gain the same learning and competition opportunities through the annual event.