Embers Robotics is a community robotics team centered around a FIRST Robotics Competition team, Team 7583, Embers.
Our FRC team was formed in 2019 with 6 students and is now in its 5th year, having grown to 17 students.
Current News
2024
PKLeap – 12th November
Our FRC robot got another run at Port Kembla as part of PKYP’s PKLeap program. This is a program pitched at students from the Port Kembla/Warrawong/Berkeley area who will be entering high school in 2025.
WIEC 6 week Program (Oct-Nov)
Following on from our successful collaboration in 2023 we were invited back to team up with PKYP to run a 6 week program for students from the Warrawong Intensive English Centre. Every Thursday for 6 weeks we are running 2 hour robotic sessions for 14 students learning English in the WIEC program. Everyone is having great fun exploring robotics using the Wedo 2.0 and Spike Prime kits.
October Holiday Programs
We conducted two holiday programs in the October school holidays, one at Elonera Montessori school and one at our workshop at the Wollongong TAFE. These programs saw us facilitate classes for 16 students across the 2 days using Wedo and Spike Prime kits – lots of fun!
Lord Mayor’s Picnic 27th October
We were out again early on a Sunday morning hanging out at MacCabe Park in Wollongong at the 2024 Lord Mayor’s picnic. Word must have gotten out about the robot building as we were run off our feet as the kids lined up to build Wedo 2.0 robots. We hardly got time to draw breath 🙂
Once again thanks to WCC for supplying the portable gazebo to give us some shade and the tables and chairs!
Twilight Market 17th October – Elonera Montessori School
Our FRC robot hadn’t had a run for a while so it was good to get it out and shake out some cobwebs at the EMS Twilight market. After a busy year at various FRC events it has a few problems but still managed to draw plenty of kids wanting to investigate how it works and feed in the “Note” field piece and watch it shoot back out.
We teamed it with hands-on Wedo 2.0 robot builds. This ended up being very successful and saw us recruit 5 new students for our after school program and 2 new students for our FRC team for 2025. We also found a use for the 2023 cone field pieces, they are now our official robot demo segregation pieces. I think it’s the only time old field pieces have come in handy!!
Careways Koonawarra Holiday Event 9th October
Embers conducted another free holiday workshop for Careways Koonawarra in the October holidays. This session was broken into two sessions with a Wedo 2.0 younger student session in the morning attended by 15 students and an FLL taster session in the afternoon which attracted 4 teams of students building EV3 Mindstorms robots donated by FIRST Australia and Team 3132. The aim was to solve FLL challenge missions using the Into Orbit mat and elements that Embers donated.
MindQuest September 21-22 September
Once again we participated in a Wedo 2.0 holiday workshop as part of MindQuest. As always class was overflowing with very inquisitive Year 1 and 2 students. The weather was much kinder to this than the last time we participated in this event.
July is going off!
July saw us very busy running multiple free displays and holiday events including a session for NAIDOC on 11th July at Careways Koonawarra and holiday sessions for PKYP on 15th July and for the Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre on July 17
Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre Holiday Event 17th July
Embers conducted a free hands-on holiday workshop for the community members of the Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre in the July holidays. The kids enjoyed building and programming with the Lego Wedo 2.0 kits.
Port Kembla Youth Project Holiday Event 15th July
Embers conducted another holiday workshop for PKYP in the July holidays. This session was an FLL taster session and was a great success. We had 4 teams building EV3 Mindstorms robots and solving FLL missions using the HydroDynamics mat and elements that had been donated by FIRST Australia Team 3132.
NAIDOC 2024 – 11th July
Embers spent the day out at the Koonawarra Community Centre running a hands on Wedo 2.0 session with Careways for their NAIDOC event. We were inundated with punters wanting to have a go which was really exciting
Melbourne Robotics Tournament (MRT) 5-7th July
Wow what an amazing event! I think everyone will agree that this was a great tournament. We were chosen in Alliance 6 and went on to beat Alliance 3, then 5 and then 4 before being knocked out by the event winners Alliance 2.
Every single one of the team were so impressive, and despite having some robot challenges they were persistent, resilient and positive, it was so impressive to see. And the networking that was going on – I think everyone in the team managed to link up with other teams across the weekend and I am sure many new FIRST friendships were forged.
Duel Down Under 2024
Embers attended Duel Down Under (DDU) on 22nd-23rd June at Macquarie University, a very rainy cold weekend !
Our senior students (& newly minted junior mentors) confidently stepped up and took charge at DDU and steered the rookies through the event. Our two drive teams swapped and changed as everyone had a chance to try their hand at the many different roles available on the field. We got selected in Alliance 6 but a field network glitch that couldn’t be rectified called a halt to proceedings for all early, and Alliances 1 and 2 were declared winner and runner up. We came home with the Partnership award and lots of happy students.
My Future Matters 6th June
Embers were delighted to run 2 sessions at UOW for MFM again. 40 kids through 2 back-to-back sessions. Lots of work but lots of fun
KidsFest 19th May
Out at the Illawarra Light Railway Museum Albion Park Rail as part of KidsFest on Sunday May 19th. The weather was cool but fortunately it did not rain.
Embers ran a 4 hour hands on Wedo robotics session for the festival and we had about 20 – 30 kids visit us and try their hand at making a Lego Wedo 2.0 model (or 2). Hopefully this has interested a few more kids towards looking at a future STEM career!
Port Kembla Youth Project Holiday Event 15th April
We spent the 15th April out at PKYP running a free hands on holiday program for the Port Kembla community . Wow, what a turnout!. The class was overflowing and the kids just keep coming (we expected about 25 students and I think around 36 turned up). It was a fun day and we saw some exciting builds as the students explored robotics using Wedo 2.0, Spike Prime and also EV3 kits. Students also got a look at an earlier season FLL mat and were able to put together some of the challenge elements (we look forward to running an pre-FLL season day for the community using this mat).
Thanks FIRST Australia for donating the EV3 kits and FLL mat, it was gratefully received by PKYP and the kids certainly had fun exploring and building using these components.
MindQuest April 6-7th
On a very tumultuous weekend where Wollongong received over 200mm of rain we braved the trek up to Kogarah to run a Wedo 2.0 holiday workshop as part of MindQuest. The class was filled to the brim of very inquisitive Year 1 and 2 students who created some amazing robots and had a great time. Thanks to the Embers students for volunteering their weekend at this event.
Southern Cross FRC Event – March 2024
Embers spent March 15-17th out at the Hawkesbury PCYC competing in the 2024 Southern Cross FRC regional event.
It was great to see so many international teams back this year and some amazing rookie teams competing.
We got chosen in Alliance 8 and unfortunately got knocked out in the quarter finals.
We got to catch up with Sue, our mentor from Rockwell Automation. It was great to meet her in person and we were buoyed by her enthusiasm and passion for FRC.
We also picked up the Woodie Flowers award – congratulations to the awards team – well done!
Students were enabled to attend this event thanks to a grant from The Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.
The Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer is committed to encouraging students to consider a future career in a science-, technology-, engineering- or mathematics-related (STEM-related) field.
The Office offers funding to NSW high school and tertiary students participating in STEM-related courses, competitions and events through several programs including the Science & Engineering Challenge, the Supporting Young Scientists Equity and Access Program and the STEM Student Competition Sponsorship Program.
Lords Mayor’s Picnic 2023 (held-over due to weather)
Sunday morning 18th February found us hanging out at MacCabe Park in Wollongong at the 2023 Lord Mayor’s picnic, an event that had been postponed last year due to rain.
The weather was sunny but steamy, although we did have an occasional cool breeze.
We ran a hands on Wedo 2.0 workshop for a few hours for the new kindergarten kids, lots of interest in the robots and many robot fans built in the hope of cooling us off.
Thanks to WCC for supplying the portable gazebo to give us some shade and the tables and chairs!
Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre
We spent Wednesday 24th January out at Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre where 15 excited kids spent a few hours building and programming Wedo 2.0 robots. It was lots of fun for everyone involved. Thanks Cath and Kay for organising.
2024 already!
We have kicked off the year by running a 2 day holiday event at our workshop at the TAFE on 4-5 January and teamed up with our friends at Careways in Dapto at the Horsley Community Centre to run a free 2 session holiday program for junior and senior students on 17th January. Lots of happy kids!!
2023
Even though it is off-season we have quite a bit happening at the moment:
- Fortnightly outreach with our friends over at PKYP (Port Kembla Youth Program) – reach out to them if you are interested in some free robotics on a monday after school
- Gearing up for another free after holiday program at Bellambi, keep checking back for dates, looks like end Jan 2024 at this stage.
- Ongoing engagements with Careways at Koonawarra
Lord Mayor’s Picnic
We were due to demo our robot again at the 2023 Lord Mayor’s picnic on 5th November but sadly this was cancelled due to the weather. Hopefully this will be rescheduled in 2024.
PkLeap – Port Kembla Youth Program
We spent Tuesday morning 7th Nov running a robot demo over at PKYP as part of their PKLeap program. This is a program for year 6 students to help build resilience and wellbeing, and to prepare them for the transition to high school.
Great to see a lot of interest in STEM from some of the young woman there, hopefully some future female engineers!!
MFM – UOW My Future Matters – Oct/Nov
We spent 3 fun days over at UOW collaborating with Woolyungah Indigenous Centre (WIC)on their MFM program. This program aims to shape indigenous students awareness and aspirations of higher education and post-school options.
Six 1 hour sessions spread over 3 days with 14-18 students in each session. It was lots of work but lots of fun!!
Twilight Market at Elonera Montessori School
We spent a few hours giving the robot another run, this time at the Twilight Market at EMS.
The kids loved interacting with the robot and there was a certainly a lot of interest. We also had some Wedo kits in operation and many kids got to build and program robots for the very first time.
PKYP & WIEC
Outreach on 20th September at Warrawong High School as part of the PKYP Stepping Stones program.
Great fun with 14 students enrolled in the Intensive English Centre playing around with robots in a hands on session.
Lots of great collaboration and engagement and amazing robots built in the session.
Thanks Kate for allowing us into your classroom.
NAIDOC 2023 celebration at Koonawarra Community Centre 6th July
What a fantastic day it was at the Koonawarra Community Centre on Thursday 6th July. Embers helped the community celebrate NAIDOC 2023, and our hands-on Wedo 2.0 stall was very well attended. Thanks to all of those who visited us on the day.
Melbourne Robotics Tournament July 2023
Team 7583 attend MRT on the weekend July 1-2 – what an event!!
Despite sitting in 2nd position for most of the tournament and being 2nd alliance captain it was once again not our weekend to bring home the trophy, but I think we brought home something a lot more valuable and lifechanging than that. The team were amazing, so professional and showed impressive dedication, passion and kindness. Well done everyone !! Big thanks to the Future Robotics Alliance for organising such a great event and to our alliance partners, teams 4537 (Roboroos from SA), 9144 (Helix from Vic) & 9991 (Melb Girls College from Vic).
Outreach With Hayes Park Public School May/June 2023
We spent 4 weeks with Hayes Park Public School exploring STEM using the Lego Spike Prime and Lego Wedo 2.0 kits.
Great fun, great kids, big thanks to Al Marshall and Michael Honeywood.
2023 DDU Off Season Event – May 20-21
Our robot got another great run this weekend at the Duel Down Under up at MQU. Great weekend for our rookie driver team and some of our younger students who did us proud making it all the way to the grand final. Big thanks to our alliance partners (Bossely Park Wolfgang and RoboRebels). The most exciting part was watching Alliance 4 (us) knock out Alliance 1. You don’t see that happening often.
2023 Southern Cross FRC Regional Event – March 10-12th
WOW what a weekend!! Team 7583 competed in the Southern Cross Regional FRC event held at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre. It was amazing, inspirational, frustrating and tiring and everyone had a great time. We can’t wait to do it all over again in Melbourne at MRT in July. Big thanks to our alliance partners (The DropBears and Koalafied). We all worked exceptionally well together (triple balance on the charge station multiple times – woo-hoo) but unfortunately got knocked out in the play-offs.
2022
Lord Mayor’s Picnic
Greg was out and about on Sunday 6th November at the Lord Mayor’s Picnic with some of his friends. Big shoutout to the GongInvaders for joining us.
FISC
We conducted a robot demo at FISC on Monday 8th August for National Science Week. It was lots of fun and Greg, our robot, scored 2 baskets – great shooting!
KidsFest
A few members of Team 7583 spent the day at KidsFest at the Illawarra Light Railway Museum on Sunday 22 May.
It was a great day and fortunately the rain held off, all the kids seemed to have fun “feeding” balls to our robot Greg
Fitzroy Falls Adventure
Big thanks to The AVCON Foundation and Optimum Experiences who hosted us at Fitzroy Falls on 26th March.
They tested our leadership and collaboration skills and took us out of our comfort zones. Even the weather couldn’t dampen a great day!
2022 Southern Cross FRC Regional Event
March 2022 saw us compete at the WEC in the Southern Cross Regional for the Rapid React season.
It was great to be able to attend an event in our home city of Wollongong and there were some amazing robots on show.
We ended up getting knocked out in the semi-finals after being Alliance Captain 5. The event was taken out by the strong alliance of Barker Redbacks, Pymble Pride and Artemis.
