General News
25 November, 2025
EB’s Robotics championships grow larger
Victoria’s youngest programmers took centre stage at this year’s Energy Breakthrough (EB) Robotics championships, where students put their engineering and coding skills to the test in the Sphero Global Challenge.
Following last year’s success, Sphero robots returned to EB, honing in on primary and secondary student’s problem solving and programming skills.
This year, challenges were hosted with a forest theme in the Maryborough Town Hall, where robots were forced to complete a series of human survival tasks, powerful enough to achieve an energy breakthrough.
EB robotics coordinator Rob Higgins said students spend months learning to code using Sphero, programming the robot to complete a series of tasks.
“The first challenge is chopping down trees to make firewood. Then they basically have to go into a little cabin, open the door, collect something from the bush, collect water,” he said.
“Secondary schools do the same challenges, plus a few more, but each team also goes in and has an interview with the judges.”
Multiple teams from local schools including Carisbrook, Avoca, Saint Augustine’s and Timor primary, and students from Bendigo went head to head while being assessed under a range of criteria.
“We looked for teamwork, but it’s also the coding we look at, there are alternative ways to do it, but the code won’t work unless all students cooperate,” Mr Higgins said.
The EB looks for teams all over Victoria of around four or five members that can code two robots, and have at least two female team members.
One unique team competing this year was exactly that.
Almost four hours away, Phillip Island’s Cowes Primary School STEM teacher Todd Cleeland had students approach him keen to take part, as soon as the championships were introduced.
“We had Rob come to our school in an incursion, he just brought the mats and robots and showed us what they were all about, and mentioned the possibility of a regional competition,” he said.
“He told them if they were interested, they should talk to their teacher. The only rules were schools had to have female representation in their team, encouraging females to participate in STEM. The next day, the girls said ‘we want to do it’ and we got the ball rolling.”
“After excelling in a full day event in our region, they made it to the EB.”
As a result, Cowes Primary School had an all female team at this year’s EB.
“We worked really hard to get up and running, and we made it here today, so as you can see, the challengers are prepared and they put in a lot of hard work in their own time, lunch time and class time to prepare for the day,” Mr Cleeland said.
He said the team’s strongest advantage has been their creativity, quick thinking and close collaboration.
“I think the coding is a skill they are tinkering a little with, they are good at thinking on the go, and I think the best thing these girls have got is teamwork. They put so much time into creativity too,” Mr Cleeland said.
“If they keep doing really well, they should be really proud of themselves.”
Still in its early days, EB staff would like to see more schools compete in the robotics championships. Schools can be provided with kits from EB and supported by online tutorials .
Teachers don’t have to know a lot about coding to facilitate the programs.
“We are working on having satellite programs, but teachers are a bit scared of it,” Mr Higgins said.
“But these kids may not want to ride a trike for an hour, this is teamwork with brains.
“If you’re a school like Timor Primary School, you may not have enough kids to have a footy team, but you can have a robotics team.”
