We are so grateful to everyone who attended RoboQuest 2026 last Saturday. Whether you were a young Explorer, collecting data on faraway planets, moons and asteroids, or a super pumped parent who was cheering on our kids, we simply want to say thank you!
RoboQuest has two main missions:
1) get more girls into coding, robotics and STEAM by creating genderless challenges, inspired by cooperative board games and computer games (especially The Legend of Zelda)
2) to build resilience and critical thinking by creating activities that send learners into a flow state
Our coaching team are (obviously) big fans of gamification but have also taken inspiration from other robotics competitions. To maintain fairness and objectivity, we have decided that coaches are not allowed to judge on the day or interfere with judges’ decisions.
RoboQuest 2026 kicked off with our 15 teams, three of which were competitors from H-FARM International School Vicenza, completing a “simple” line following challenge that was designed to randomly assign them their main challenge. Having shaken Carla’s hand, her cleverly coded micro:bit electronic board read out whether they would have to do the Plant, Cave, Mineral, or Lake challenge. Our competitors spent the next 2 hours testing, testing, and testing for this and the final event.
Our teams, with competitors’ ages ranging from 8 to 13, would then go on to complete their main challenge. Both the Lake and Cave challenges required sophisticated code to show the data they were collecting (either counting the bodies of water as they passed over them, or identifying light sources from underground lava tubes – very scientific!). The Mineral and Plant challenges required more precision and attention to detail as they had to collect and drop off their samples. The design of each robot was vital to success in all of these challenges.
A misplacement of obstacles on the main mats created an unexpected challenge, quickly identified by our attentive Explorers (that’s what we get for coaching them precision and accuracy!). We adapted by moving to the testing area, with four teams competing at once. The intimacy of the space and “arena” vibes only added to the excitement!
Our closing challenge of the day brought the most tension and success. Competitors had collected their data, and now it was time to send it off to the mothership! The LEGO Spike robots had to follow a mountain path, making perfect turns and thrusting up slopes, to drop their data cube off in front of a satellite that would transmit information off to space. Players lined up to take turns on the mat, respawning at the back of the line whenever they failed. Thankfully, RoboQuest is also all about failing upwards, so teams had 15 minutes to try and try again to achieve their goal.
The joy of the children, the looks of pride on the faces of their families (and coaches) exemplify our mantra to the kids; their attitude, perseverance, and collaborative skills were always the most important lessons of RoboQuest. If you’re having fun, you’re already winning, so we hope you all felt like winners on Saturday!!!
Thank you to our wonderful PTA, always ready to step in to support our students’ experiences and challenges, and that kindly donated a robot for our future competitors! This is a message from the PTA:
“On behalf of the PTA, we would like to thank all of the families who participated in the Winter Fair fundraiser. The funds raised went to the wonderful initiative run by Mr. Owen McComasky, Ms. Flika Carvalho and the Sparx Team: RoboQuest! The competition took place last Saturday and was a huge success! The funds raised were used to purchase a robot that will be used by the children. We are very proud of the work done by everyone who took part in the competition and are very happy that we were able to contribute”.
Once again, thank you for helping our little Explorers build the future. We can’t wait to see you again for a bigger and better RoboQuest 2027!
The RoboQuest team: Mr Owen McComasky, Ms Flika Carvalho, Ms Carla Vitulo, Ms Michela Giovanatto
