CAIRNS teacher Mark Hall has won state-wide recognition for getting his students as excited about robotic engineering as he is.

A practical arts, maths and information technology teacher at Cairns State High School, Mr Hall has been named the Queensland Society for Information and Technology in Education’s Educator of the Year for 2011.

Mr Hall said he was humbled by the award, and paid tribute to the work of his fellow teachers who helped him achieve the honour.

"It’s a team sport basically, and there’s lots of colleagues who have assisted me to achieve this goal," he said.

"(My family) are very proud of what I’ve done, and hopefully the work that I do will continue on."

At the presentation, QSITE noted Mr Hall’s tireless work in bringing IT-focused community events to the Far North, contributions to the QSITE board and an innovative partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Cairns.

"(We’ve) got funding from LEGO Education to take robotics to remote and rural communities," Mr Hall said of the trial program with the RFDS.

"We attempt to go out three or four times a year to provide communities and other schools in more remote areas with access to robotics and the teaching of maths and science."

Now in his fifth year teaching at Cairns High, Mr Hall said he hoped to begin new projects in the hope of "finding additional funding each year to promote the cause of robotics and IT integration within education".

"Currently, we are trying to develop industry links within manufacturing, focusing on the development of a new course in association within our department," he said.

Expansion into fields such as rapid prototyping involving 3D printing and manufacturing processes was on the cards, in "association with robotics and other design technologies".

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