On Saturday 24th March, seven of our students participated in the final “Dance Off” of the NAO Everybody Dance competition.  The SA state final was hosted by educational technology provider Brainary Interactive and was held in the fabulous facilities at the Adelaide City Library.  Ten teams of students were short-listed for this final and came from St Michael’s, St John’s Grammar school, Woodcroft College and Parafield Gardens R-7 School.   Our students comprised three of these teams – Thomas B, Ryan S & Will S in Team 1, Tily M & Elisha P in Team 2 and Harry H & Thomas K in Team 3.

Before the final, each team had an hour to work with a real NAO robot for the first time and they were able to test and improve their programmed dance.  Under pressure, our students showed excellent team work & problem solving skills and had to correct moves in the dance routine where the robot became unbalanced and fell over.  (Luckily, staff & the student’s parents were there to catch the robot when it fell!)  They also had time to programme the robot to flash it’s LED lights during the routine & finish with a final snazzy move.

The final Dance off was performed in front of approximately 100 family, friends & the general public and was judged by The Lady Mayoress of Adelaide Genevieve Theseira-Haese, Monica Williams from AISSA and Simon Loffler from University of SA MOD.  Each team’s dance routine was performed by the robot to the audience and the judges then scored each team a total of 20 points for Balance, Creativity, Fluidity of Movement and Musical Timing, with a bonus point for original musical composition.

The winning team was from Woodcroft College and our students were awarded a prize for the highest scoring school.  Well done students – this is a fabulous achievement and a unique experience to have been involved in.

Here is a video of our student’s entries in the final Dance Off.

Unit of Inquiry

These students were selected to enter this competition after the entire Middle Learning Community completed a Unit of Inquiry with the Central Idea Technology impacts daily life. One of the lines of inquiry that the students explored was how people express creativity through technology. In Creative Arts, students used coding and computational thinking skills, combined with imagination & creativity, to make a virtual NAO robot dance, using the Choregraphe computer programme.  They created a timeline in the programme, into which they added a music track and then manipulated & stored the robot’s head & limbs into different positions for every second of the 30 second dance.

This inquiry had students engaged in transdisciplinary learning of The Arts (Media Arts, Dance & Music), Digital Technologies, Maths & Science.

Here are some photos of the students in action, along with a video clip of Harriet & Kayla’s Choregraphe project.