Fun with Beginner LEGO MindStorms EV3 Robotics.

     For several years since retiring, I have had a lot of fun working on a voluntary basis with a group led by Ying Chen. This group has, as one of its aims, the spread of technical knowledge amongst School Students using a robotics program that introduces building and programming skills. Seeing the success achieved by students of this program has been a continuing delight, and I feel privileged to be associated with this group. 

     My background before retiring was about 1/3 of my life lecturing at various Universities in Computer Science, Information Systems and Engineering subjects. The 1/3 before that I was a full-time single parent caring for my children. In the first third of my working life I was an Engineer working for an Electricity Authority that produced all the electricity for my home state with negligible carbon dioxide output. 

     I also spent two years working in S.E. Asia as a volunteer with the Australian Volunteers Abroad. 

     My academic qualifications are B.E., B.A., Ph.D., M.I.E.Aust., M.I.E.E.E.. 

  Yaya has been playing with Lego robots since 2006. Since then she has achieved robotics success in State, National and World events, including: 

  Two World RoboCup Junior Firsts (the Rescue category in Austria and the Dance category in Singapore); first place in the senior category of the Australian RoboGals competition; the highest Australian School CSIRO award - the Gold CREST; the highest Australian School Science Award - first place in the BHP-Billiton Engineering Award; among 1600 of the brightest students from 72 countries at ISEF in Arizona USA she gained a first Citation Award; she was invited to Google’s Australia-New Zealand Anita Borg Scholarship retreat; and she gave an oral presentation of her paper at the IEEE Fifth Biomedical International Conference in Thailand. 

  Outside robotics, Yaya has represented Tasmania in the Pride of Australia Medal, was a finalist in the Tasmanian division of the Young Australian of the Year, was invited to address the Tasmanian Parliament at their Annual Science Forum, has achieved a 99th percentile in the National Mathematics test; and has won prizes and medals in Piano and Judo when younger.

        Yaya studied the International Baccalaureate, and took one of these two-year subjects a year early and obtained a 7. Yaya was then offered a place to study a Bachelor of Software Engineering at the Australian National University, under the University's Tuckwell Scholarship. While there Yaya was chosen for a software engineer position at Google Australia, was hired by the University as an academic tutor for multiple computer science courses, and is currently employed as a software engineer at the Australian Digital Transformation Agency.

Ying Chen has had an interest in Lego robots and robotics since 2006, working quietly in the background to help and guide her group in efforts to spread technical knowledge among young students. The program she has overseen has been associated with voluntary assistance to robotics programs in a variety of schools and community groups, and has produced several web sites that have made free robotics tutorial material available worldwide, resulting in millions of hits from over 150 countries and translations of robotics-related web pages into over 40 languages. Students associated with this program have won multiple State, Country, and World first places in robotics-related events. The group's latest project is this introductory mini-robotics course for absolute beginners using Lego's new EV3 MindStorms sets, produced with assistance from Google.

Ying Chen is a lecturer in Information Systems at the University of Tasmania.