ESCA’s Rockin Robots Team is #1 in Virtual Robotics Competition!

We are so proud of our fifth grade Rockin Robots Team for placing first in the Robot Dance Challenge (Elementary Division) in the Archdiocese of Hartford's (AOHCT) Virtual Robotics Competition yesterday! The Elementary Division encompassed grades four and five and Middle School Division — grades six through eight. East Shoreline Catholic Academy had two entries in the Elementary Division and one in the Middle School Division.

For several weeks, students explored VEX Robotics. The teams worked together to use coding such as conditional if statements and while loop statements in order to meet certain requirements. We had three team finalists competing against approximately 47 teams in the Virtual Robotics Competition hosted by the AOHCT. A total of ten Catholic schools participated.

The competition held three programming challenges for both the elementary and middle school teams. Challenge 1: Navigate the Number Grid Challenge, Challenge 2: Robot Dance Challenge, and Challenge 3: Cooperative Crystal Collection Challenge. Our eighth grade students competed in the Middle School Division — Navigate the Number Grid Challenge. Out of the three program challenges the Robot Dance Challenge was said to be a perfect example of demonstrating the teams’ STEAM skills, i.e., the teams had to program the robot to dance to the music they researched and selected, this involved synchronizing movement to the music. Our fifth grade students programmed with block coding and synchronized their robot to dance to Happy by Pharell Williams. Mrs. Pecoraro’s fourth grade Cha Cha Squad also competed in the Robotics Dance Challenge, and did an excellent job in demonstrating their STEAM skills as they coded and synchronized their robot to dance to The Cha Cha Slide by Mr. C “DJ Casper”. You can see what grade 4 did in the link of the competition 16:26-16:43. The video and results for grade 5 can be seen from 21.58-24.25 in the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCaW2XfxJpY

We are so proud of all of our students — they did a fantastic job collaborating and utilizing the coding and problem solving skills learned to complete these difficult challenges.

East Shoreline Catholic Academy (ESCA) is a dynamic PreK3 to Gr. 8 STREAM model school, preparing individual students to be our future leaders rooted in faith, service, and academic excellence.

At ESCA our educators employ innovative and collaborative classroom environments for your child, utilizing a "growth mindset" philosophy. This innovative classroom environment combined with our progressive STREAM educational curriculum will enable students to meet the demands of the 21st century.