It was a competition of the Battle of the Orbs at C.R. Gummow on Wednesday, October 31, 2018 in Cobourg.
Matt Penney’s grade six and seven class worked on creating the battle orbs with balloons attached. With one plastic up and 10 items, they had to create the best object which involved their orb popping the competitions balloon.
The gladiators (students) then took their battle orbs with colourful names like Balloon Reaper to the coliseum (gym) for the games to begin.
Students used an Ipad to control the orbs racing around the marked area defending themselves in a battle to the finish.
The last two inside the squared circle would move on to the next round, until the winners were crowned.
“They’ve built defences and ways to pop other peoples robots,” said Penney.
“It’s a bit of an engineering challenge because they’ve been able to build and protect.”
Penney said although it’s an introductory task it has a lot of components that the youth of today show an interest for like computers
“A lot of the students have almost a secret talent of creating things like this once they get building, using their hands and technology at the same time.”
“Sometimes going into high school it may be intimidating to pick a class, where they may not know a lot about it, but now they may have an idea of what the class has to offer and might be interested.”
It also prepares them for the job force in years to come.
“Robotics, engineering and science are where a lot of future careers are going to be so this gives them the opportunity to do it now to see if it sparks and interest.”
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
