HOW tough can the HSC be when your teacher lets you play Lego?
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It’s not as simple as it looks, according to Batemans Bay High School teacher Robert Attwood.
Inspired by NSW University computer programming classes using robots, Mr Attwood let Year 11 Software Design and Development students loose on Lego in an annual challenge.
“It is a select group of students who decide to go that far with computers,” he said.
“They learn to program in several different languages, including Lego Mindstorm.
“They learn to program their robot and it has to go through several different tasks or challenges.
“The students that take the course are interested in higher level computing and they are genuinely interested in the more complex side of programming computers.
“These are the type of students who will go home and do it for fun.
“Their computer is part of their entertainment. They love it.”
He said mostly boys were attracted to the course, with no girls enrolling this year.
“Each year, we tend to get one or two but when they get to the Year 12 stage where they can drop a course they tend to drop off,” Mr Attwood said.
“We do have girls finish, but not many.”
Students may go on to study to be software engineers, computer programmers or in web databases.