If you’ve noticed a bunch of funny hats and cheering children on campus lately, you may be wondering what’s going on. The answer is robots, of course! Hundreds of school children are converging on campus this fortnight for the passioned frenzy that is FIRST.

Students from over 20 countries are currently on campus for the 2016 FIRST Australia Asia Pacific Invitational competition, which kicked off on 3 July with an opening ceremony in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

Individual competitions are being held across each of the four FIRST programs, which are tailored to specific age groups to inspire a love of STEM.  See the run down below.

FIRST LEGO League Junior
This competition for Kindergarten to Year 3 students was introduced to Australia for the first time this year, with four teams battling it out in a small demo competition with a ‘Waste Wise’ theme.

FIRST LEGO League
This competition – open to 9-16 year olds – saw 400 participants from 21 countries compete with the support of 120 volunteers. The theme was ‘Trash Trek’, with students building LEGO robots, as well as researching innovative solutions to Reduce, Reuse, or Recycle.

Cheered on by staff from both the FIRST Headquarters in the US and the LEGO Education Headquarters in Denmark, Team Samurai7 from Japan were the triumphant victors. Over 1000 people attended campus for the three-day event.

FIRST Robotics
Held last weekend, 300 competitors from from Australia and China fought it out in the ‘Duel Down Under’. Winning teams were Barker Redbacks, Project Bucephalus from Wollongong, and Tempe T-Rex, who’s robots successfully ‘captured’ their opponents castles in the FIRST Stronghold-themed competition.

FIRST Tech Challenge
Commencing this Friday in the Macquarie Theatre, this three-day event for 14-18 years olds will see feature 35 teams from 12 countries.

FIRST Australia is proudly supported by Macquarie University.