McCallum Hill Public School duo are top ANSTO coders

Michaela Loukas and Alia Guellati of McCallum Hill Public School were crowned champions in the Year 5 Division at the 2018 ANSTO Top Coder Competition.

McCallum Public School’s Alia Guellati and Michaela Loukas with their teacher Bridget Sharkey, and Year 6 Division winners from Bundeena Public School, Rosa Phelan and Zyren Case.

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MICHAELA Loukas and Alia Guellati of McCallum Hill Public School were crowned champions in the Year 5 Division at the 2018 ANSTO Top Coder Competition.

The Roselands college students triumphed in the biggest competition held recently at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights’ campus, which attracted more than 100 budding robotics engineers and coders.

The competition was hosted by Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) with the theme for the Year 5 section being ‘Science in Space’.

The winners and runners-up at the 2018 ANSTO Top Coder competition.

Seven of the eight winners this year were female students.

Students worked with coding and robotics coaches, honing skills, developing ideas, applying their technical abilities and using creative and critical thinking skills.

In the coding competition, students were given the theme ‘Science in Space’ and had to first develop an idea for a game, animation, art, music or story, and then put their coding skills to work to using the programming language ‘Scratch’.

Students who participated in the robotics competition took part in a series of challenges, building their skills and competency in code and construction as they prepared for a final challenge at the end of the day.

Organisers said this year’s competition was its biggest yet, seeing the introduction of a new robotics competition in addition to scratch coding event.

Brandon Wong and Caitlin Jiang from Berala Public School took out the Year 6 Top Coder award.

Students from almost 50 schools competed in nine heats and two finals, with students from Burren Junction travelling more than 2,400km to take home the Year 5 robotics competition.

“ANSTO’s Top Coder Competition nurtures the critical STEM and digital literacy skills that today’s students must develop in order to succeed in tomorrow’s world,” ANSTO CEO Dr Adi Paterson said.

“Developing Australia’s capabilities in science and technology will be critical for Australia’s productivity and to remain competitive on a global scale.