St Mary's Calne
First Lego League is an international STEM competition. Regional teams in the UK compete against each other to gain a place in the national final. The team that wins the national final will then compete in the international event. It includes four components Robotics Development, Science Innovation Project, Robotics Game Knockout and the Values Award. All components contribute in equal manner to the overall winner.
You might be tempted to think that it is the same every year - it is not. The competition mat changes every year with a new innovation theme too. Teams really have to work hard on their presentation skills showing their own development and how they have solved problems along the way. I do love this competition as it really has the skills needed for successful engineers of the future.
Last year, we came back with the Values trophy. The competition mat this year has been more challenging and robots have had to be incredibly more accurate in their movements and actions. We have been very fortunate to have members of the team in their third/fourth season (Jemima J, Claudia F and Emilia C, Ami B and Mia B) that have given confidence to the younger team members (Matilda J, Sophia T, Charlotte P and Liliana R). They presented well and they had a good robot (Nitro 2, also in its third season).
At the end of the first round, we found ourselves in the top four with six teams moving on to the knock-out stage. We were certainly hoping for the best but we had not anticipated finding our team in the final to match against our very own St Margaret's robotics team.
In a nail biting two match final, we won the first match by a good margin which was very useful as we lost the second match by a few points, which gave us the win that have only dreamed about back in September at the start of the project.
The team will get a well deserved rest for a few weeks and we will start in the Summer Term with our new robot design preparation and new algorithm research in preparation for next year. We would like to dream big, and get our hearts set on winning the regional event.
“I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.” — Venus Williams.
Mr Hugo Corripio-Lopez, Head of Computer Science