In the face of the fight against coronavirus, Year 8 students at St Paul’s College, Gilles Plains, have done their little bit to help.
The Year 8 Robotics class have been learning to design, build and program robots to solve a variety of problems. They were tasked with using these skills to solve a very relevant real-world problem: to design and build a hands-free device to dispense hand sanitiser.
The students used engineering-process thinking to define the problem then broke into small teams to create a strong support structure, and to research how to use an ultrasonic sensor and an arm to engage the sanitiser pump.
A first prototype worked but lacked the grunt to depress the pump. A few tweaks at the drawing board to get more torque of the motors finally resulted in a working model.
“It was a true team effort and we were all so excited when all the components came together and it worked!”, said Sue O’Malley, Coding and Robotics Teacher at St Paul’s College.
“The best part of making the hand sanitiser robot was fiddling with all the Lego Mindstorm pieces and working out the code to program it”, said student Sam Bettison (pictured).
Classmate Logan Percy said there had been a lot to consider.
“We had to take the robots size, weight and strength into account”, he said.
The successful prototype is now installed and operational at the Student Services desk at the College.
Catholic Education SA has launched a Learning Online website that will provide support for our students and teachers as we move to providing learning in an online environment.
