On the weekend of the 22nd of August, this year’s senior CPS Robotics teams had the privilege of competing in the 2026 RoboCup Jr, down at Murdoch University.
It was a spectacular setting, in the amazing new Boola Katitjin building, and the hundreds of students participating were buzzing as formal introductions and proceedings began.
This year we had four teams ready, two participating in the Maze Rescue divisions and two teams participating in the Standard Soccer competition.
As always, it is a very steep learning curve when at the competition, as no support is allowed from mentors or parents and the students are left to fend for themselves. This is a challenging situation as, under the pressure of competition, things often go wrong and keeping calm and working through solutions is tricky… and that is exactly what our teams had to do.
Saturday’s heats did not produce many points for all of our teams as they adjusted to the requirements of the challenges. Luckily, by the end of the day, their persistence and teamwork paid off, with all teams getting ‘on the board’ and experiencing some success.
Unfortunately for our Year 5 Maze team, Alan, Zadie, Harvey and Nina, there was a higher number of teams in their division this year, and therefore it was hard, with a slow start, to make the cut for Sunday’s heats. While they enjoyed some movement at the end of the day and ended with big smiles on their faces, they were eliminated and are already looking forward to 2027.
All other teams made it through to Sunday’s heats, most of them neck and neck with the competing teams. Our inexperienced girls’ soccer team, Enya, Elizabeth, Alyssa and Bonnie-Belle, put up a good showing but were eliminated in the first knock-out round.
The other Year 5 soccer team, Patrick, Kriswell, Maddy and Sebastian, provided the highlights of the competition, winning strongly in their first knock-out, getting outgunned against a strong high-school team in the semis, before surviving full time against the Perth Modern team, then taking out the win with the golden goal, claiming third place! An outstanding effort for a team of Year 5s in their first-ever RoboCup competition against fancied high-school teams.
Finally, our Year 6 boys, Ethan, Isaac, Kaiden and Jayden, battled hard all weekend in a two-team competition against our friendly rivals at Perth Modern. Over the weekend, improvements were made to their machine, and slowly but surely they gained ground after a tough start on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, in the end, first place wasn’t to be; however, they thoroughly earned a second-place medal, finishing only a handful of points behind their counterparts.
Thank you to all the students for working so hard throughout the year. It was a huge effort over a long time, and you should all be very proud of what you have learned and accomplished.
Thank you to the parents who supported our students by getting them to classes throughout the year, and also for getting them to Murdoch and cheering them on at the competition! It’s what makes it so exciting!
We are already onto our Year 3s and 4s, who will finish out the year learning the basics of our robotics program — hopefully inspired and ready to join their seniors for the real stuff in 2027!
Luke Johnson
Deputy Principal
