Year 8 DTE

The Year 8 video games and Micro:bit virtual pets are in and they are looking fabulous! From pandas to aliens, to dinosaurs and underwater creatures, students have let their imaginations run wild to create these games and pets!

Attached are a small sample of some of the excellent games from our Year 8 students. Select a game from the links below to play it!

The artistic endeavour doesn’t stop there! We have some wonderful artwork coming through the Year 8 classes working with Photoshop. Well done everyone!

Unit 1 Applied Computing

Year 11 Applied Computing have been building up their programming skills using Python. They have revised basic terms such as commands, loops, if statements, events and have created a variety of programs with Grok and the Micro:bits. For one of the SAT modules, students had to design the User Experience for a wellbeing app that they had already programmed, using Python. The challenge was to build a device that could be strung up on the school gates to attract attention and collect data on how students were feeling leaving school. It’s quite tricky to design for someone else to build and then build someone else’s design to their specifications, but I think you’ll agree the students have done a great job!

LEGO® comes to Kilbreda

LEGO® Building Competition

The STEM Leaders have been running LEGO® building competitions in the STEM Room at lunchtimes on Fridays. Each day has a different theme from houses to creatures to mini-figs to colour. It’s such a great buzz in the room with students from Years 7 to 12 battling it out! All welcome to join us at the final sessions. Keep an eye on SIMON for the details.

Channel 9’s LEGO®MASTERS

Speaking of LEGO®, recently we were lucky enough to have Ryan Evans from the most recent series of LEGO®MASTERS come to Kilbreda and run a fantastic LEGO® workshop for some of our Year 7 and 8 students. Students learnt how to build robots, prosthetic arms, cars and then how to code them. Below are some of their reflections of the day.  

Student Reflections

The LEGO®MASTERS day with Ryan Evans was such a great experience and I would 100% do it again! One of the things I enjoyed the most was building the ‘grabbing claw’. I loved it so much because we got to build and code the claw and then we could build things for it to pick up.

Grace and I came to two of the Friday LEGO® competitions. The topic for the first one was ‘Creatures’ and we built a red dragon. With the second one, the topic was ‘Mini Figures’. We went with our friend Verity and because we had won the week prior, we got to pick the mini figure first. We picked Santa and won again!

Thank you to everyone involved for organising these great events.

Neive R
Year 7

Recently, a group of us were given the opportunity to participate in the LEGO®MASTERS Workshop with a LEGO® Master, Ryan Evans. The group was given a series of activities that were all about LEGO® engineering. We were given a box of supplies and had instructions on how to build using the pack that connected to iPads using block coding like Scratch.

We made three different creations. The first one was a little robot that we got to design how the arms moved and we had a little race against each other. The second creation was a bit more challenging as we had to build it into three different sections, two of them being holders and the other being the controller. Later, we got to test it out and see what we could lift and what different adjustments we could do to make it even better!

Our final build was the most challenging, which made it my favourite. We made a car! When we had finished our cars, we were given cranes to add to our cars and we had to program our code to make the cranes lift up a LEGO® bug. It was really funny when Ryan described the car challenge like us being Uber drivers, collecting and dropping off LEGO® bugs. The whole day was great fun but by far my favourite things were the race, spending time learning new skills with my friends and playing with LEGO®.

Jess G 
Year 8

On 17 May, selected students had the opportunity to attend a LEGO®MASTERS workshop where we met Ryan Evans (a past contestant on LEGO®MASTERS). We participated in many fun and engaging activities. We used different programming apps, which allowed our robots to do simple tasks, such as moving around and responding to our commands. At one point, we were able to see which one of our robots was the fastest with a race; this had everyone nervous but excited wondering which robot would win it. Every robot had an assigned name; our robot was called ‘Lamaurr’. ‘Lamaurr’ went surprisingly fast and was very close to winning. My favourite activity was when we built a robotic arm with LEGO®. With just one push of a button it was able to pick up smaller objects. The day flew by and I had an amazing time building and experimenting with my friends. This was such an interesting workshop and I would encourage other students to sign up for any future workshops.

Mia K
Year 7

On Wednesday 17 May, some Year 7 and 8 students participated in a LEGO®MASTERS workshop with special guest, Ryan Evans. We all had a great time. At the start of the day, we came together in the STEM Room where we met Ryan for the first time. We were all excited and had many interesting questions and wanted to know more of his story. After a fun Q&A we got ready for our first task which was making a robot that moves. It was very cool and the building process was even designed by Ryan Evans himself! My robot was called ‘Babbage’ and I think I may have gotten too attached to him.

After we built our robots, we tested them out on the floors, and it was hilarious. We played around with them a bit and then designed our own wheels for a race between all the robots. ‘Babbage’ didn’t seem to come through and win but it’s okay, he will next time!

After Recess we all came back to the STEM Room for our next task which was making another robot that could grab things. The building process was also designed by Ryan which was very cool. This task was a bit more challenging but we still managed to make it after many failed attempts and a lot of help from Ryan. We were able to complete the challenge. This robot had a little piston which made the robot grab things which I found very interesting. This task did not have any challenges or races, but it was still very enjoyable to build.

For our last task of the day, we had a programming/building challenge. We made these carts that could pick things up and we had to program it a specific way. In my opinion it was definitely the most challenging because we did not know what program to give it. After a lot of help, we finally made some progress but wasn’t quite finished yet. Unfortunately, the bell rang which meant it was time for us to go home. I wish I finished the challenge but it’s okay because my teammate Mia and I, got most of it done.

Overall, I enjoyed this day very much and I’m sure everyone else did too. Ryan Evans was an amazing guest and we are so thankful that he ran the workshop. I can’t wait to hopefully participate in the workshop again next year.

Lana Z
Year 7

On 17 May, Year 7 and 8 students participated in a LEGO®MASTERS Workshop. Ryan Evans, a finalist in Season 3, ran the workshop. We built robots out of LEGO® and coded them so that they could move around. Our first build was a simple robot and after playing around with it, we had to create our own wheels for it. After we created our wheels for our robots, we then raced against the other robots. It was fun experimenting how to create wheels and I really enjoyed the racing part.

Vivian L
Year 7

Tech Angels

Would you like to be a Tech Angel for Semester 2? I am looking for students in Year 7 and 8 who might be interested in learning a bit more about the software and hardware in the classrooms so you can help other students and staff. If you are interested in finding out more, please email me at adrienne.donoghue@kilbreda.vic.edu.au

Adrienne Donoghue
Learning Leader: Digital Technologies