Four Allandale School students teamed up to score second place at the national Aquabots tournament in Auckland.

Aquabots is on engineering challenge for school students to design, build and race underwater robots. An eight-page report on the robot designed by students is also taken into consideration for scores and placings.

Allandale caretaker Sam Cox-Ellison said the challenges encourage teamwork and a lot of problem solving.

“It’s a lot of engineering, mechanics, and building learning,” he said.

“Students also need to be able to communicate why it works and how it works.”

Chloe Mackay, Zaynab Dean, Ziah Thorp and James Allerby were the “dream team” of year 5s and year 6s who took their aquabots skills to AUT Millenium pools, bringing home the title of second-equal with Nelson.

The group was put together after Ziah and James won the Whakatāne Regional Competition earlier this year, pushing Allandale School through to the nationals.

Zaynab and Chloe joined the winning team, with the girls providing a lot of excellent work on the report and presentation aspects.

Seven tasks were tested over the day, including practical challenges for the Aquabots, a fact sheet quiz, and a presentation.

Teacher aid Teresa Hoefsloot said this was the school’s second time at the competition, but their first year properly competing.  

“Last year we had six teams participate, just to see what it was like,” she said.

“The team was very, very excited to earn second place we’re so proud of them.”

She said the team came second in the first obstacle course before being hindered by a technical difficulty with their Aquabot in task two.  

“They were quick to figure out what it was. It was a display of good problem solving,” she said.

Quickly recovering with third place in task three, the team rounded out their streak by winning first place in the fact sheet task, and third in their presentation.

“We would like to thank Allandale School and all the teachers who supported us. We also want to acknowledge the other Whakatāne schools who joined us at nationals.

“It has been an incredible experience, and we are so proud of what we achieved.”

Zaynab and James will represent Allandale School at Aquabots next year, and Ziah and Chloe are hoping to bring their skills to intermediate.