Monday 27 July 2015

Quadblogging & Custard

custard
ˈkʌstəd/
noun
  1. a dessert or sweet sauce made with milk and eggs, or milk and a proprietary powder.


Right? Wrong. Our definition of custard is something a little different. Custard is an acronym used as a guide for writing quality blog comments, something that’s currently very useful for us as this term we are doing quadblogging! 

Custard:
We use custard to help us when we write our blog comments on our quadblogging classes’ blogs. This term we are quadblogging with three schools, and we make up the fourth. Our quadblogging buddies are:

We think that this is a great opportunity to help improve each other’s blogs, and we are starting to have some ‘comment conversations’ with our quadblogging buddies!

Here is a conversation Joanna had with Megan from Irongate School:


Now you can give it a go! Next time you comment on a blog, use this method.

Try it by clicking the button below!

-  Ella S & Kathleen

Thursday 23 July 2015

Robotics

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What do you think of when you hear the word “ROBOT”? The Terminator? A cyborg? R2D2 or C3PO? Probably something different to what the Selwyn House Senior Robotics Club members think. When we hear “ROBOT”, we tend to think of a more peaceful bunch that don’t intend to destroy (or save) the world.


Over the last term Robotics club has been working towards Robocup in 3 weeks. Robocup is a worldwide competition, although most New Zealanders stick to our National or Regional competitions. You must build and program a robot- most of the time, an NXT or an EV3 like the one shown above. The preparations are very stressful for everyone!

We have been working in teams to create performances in 3 categories, Theatre, Rescue and Soccer. In Theatre, teams choose to rather make a skit or a dance routine for their robot and them to do. In Rescue, the competition is set up in a Search and Rescue scenario. Your robot must complete challenges, such as finding and pushing a can out of a square. Soccer (quite a self-explanatory name) is where a team of two robots play a game of soccer, like a sports competition. The overall winner is determined by winning the most of the games. 

We will be posting another post in three weeks about what happened over the competition. Wish us luck!