News and Events

Students compete in Lego League Challenge

We are very proud of the team of students who travelled to Manchester to compete in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge. The event involved designing and programming a LEGO robot to complete a series of timed challenges as well as making a 30 minute presentation to a panel of judges. Our team, supported by engineers Mark and Andrew from local companies Tarmac and Buxton Lime, have spent the last 6 months designing and then building our robot.

The theme for this year was 'Submerged', and the challenges were based on deep sea exploration. To score points our robot needed to perform tasks such as raising coral beds, collecting and releasing unknown sea creatures, freeing sharks and the most important objective, gathering up krill to feed to a hungry whale.

Using software similar to Scratch, commands are sent via Bluetooth from a laptop in our home area to the robot. Two members of the team are allowed to handle the robot during two and a half minute timed runs.

After three robot runs, we were in second place. Our presentation went well and our idea of using genetically modified barnacles to solve the acidification of the world’s oceans impressed the judges. At the end of a long day of challenges we ended the competition in second place overall and won the Core Values award for teamwork and sportsmanship which was fantastic. Sadly, only the winners of the regional competitions make it through to the national final.

We hope to enter the competition again next year and will be looking for team members who are interested in engineering and programming to join us. Keep your eyes on the student notices for more details.

We would like to say a huge thank you to Mark O’Dwyer (Buxton Lime) and Andrew Armett (Tarmac) whose expertise and guidance have been instrumental to our success. A big thank you also to Tarmac and Buxton Lime for sponsoring the team, providing resources and funding our entry and travel.