Six high school students from Elonera Montessori School, Mount Ousley will head off to the United States in April after sharing the podium with their mentor robotics team at the FIRST Robotics Competition Southern Cross Regional event.
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The Elonera Embers team was guided by experienced Wollongong team Project Bucephalus through their rookie season and will now travel to Houston for a major global competition with the help of some generous community support.
The Elonera Montessori School students had just six weeks to design and build a competitive robot while conducting educational fundraising activities.
Their robot went on show at Quaycentre at Sydney Olympic Park from March 10-12 where 40 teams from nine countries competed in the tournament.
Captains of the first placed alliance Project Bucephalus selected two other teams, Barker Redbacks and Elonera Embers, to accompany them into the finals.
They worked so well together they defeated other Chinese and New Zealand teams and were declared winners of the overall event.
Following the win the Elonera Embers team was invited to represent Australia at the FIRST Championships in Houston in the United States from April 17 to 20.
An anoymous donor has made that possible by giving them the opportunity to pay the significant registration fee and travel costs.
They have also received some generous community support to not only be ambassadors for their school but Wollongong.
Project Bucephalus and the Elonera Embers are both fundraising to cover the travel costs with Go Fund Me pages.
Elonera Montessori School students faced many other challenges along the way such as resources and experience.
Participant Ethan Debsieh said the robotics event was an amazing experience.
He loved meeting teams from around the world and learning from their the different skills.
Mentor Karen Love said that was where the help of other FRC teams such as Project Bucephalus was invaluable.
She said as a result ttheir resilience was boosted, teamwork skills improved and their knowledge of STEM, fabrication and coding was advanced "through continual opportunities to apply this newly acquired knowledge".
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