Sunshine Coast Grammar School proudly launched the first annual RoboCup Junior Queensland Sumo Competition last week, marking an exciting milestone in grassroots robotics for the Sunshine Coast. In partnership with RoboCup Junior Australia, this event fosters school programs, student engagement, and strengthens the region’s robotics community.
With 11 schools and over 140 students from the Sunshine Coast and as far north as Bundaberg participating, the competition showcased skill, innovation, and teamwork. Students battled it out in both primary and secondary divisions, testing their programming and engineering skills as they designed and controlled autonomous robots to push opponents out of the ring.
Twenty-seven Grammar students from Years 5 to 7 participated in the competition and demonstrated strong performance against a highly competitive field. Throughout the semester, they have been introduced to the fundamentals of text-based coding, exploring advanced programming concepts such as state machines to deepen their understanding. Congratulations to our Year 7 team, Xander R and Noah C, who achieved an impressive second place overall in the Secondary Teams category, competing against more than 30 teams.
“This competition encourages STEM education and promotes essential life skills such as teamwork, sportsmanship and problem-solving and lets students explore their passions outside of the classroom walls,” said Justin Pembroke, Head of Digital Innovation.
“We were thrilled to bring this initiative to life and to continue working alongside our long-term Sunshine Coast collaborators.”
RoboCup Junior is a project-oriented educational initiative that delivers robotic events for young students and extends across the school curriculum.
As robotics and AI continue to shape the future of technology and industry, competitions like these provide valuable opportunities for students to develop technical abilities while learning the importance of resilience and teamwork.
Sunshine Coast Grammar School looks forward to welcoming the competition back next year and to continuing to celebrate the talent of our future innovators and leaders.
