Redrow Homes has sponsored a team of students from Marlborough St. John’s in the First Lego League Robotics Based Lifeskills Challenge aimed at nine to fourteen-year-olds – worldwide.
Students were required to design solutions for real life problems and build a mission-solving robot made of Lego. They also had to justify the design of the robot and demonstrate creative thinking and problem solving as a team working together to overcome challenges.
The theme for this year’s tournament was ‘Into Orbit’ and students were required to identify a physical or social problem faced by humans during long duration space exploration within our Sun’s solar system and propose a solution.
At the regional tournament, held in Bristol earlier this month, teams of students demonstrated their robots, which they had worked hard to programme over the last few months to navigate a Lego obstacle course.
Four awards were presented at the Bristol tournament. St. John’s students won the award for demonstrating the best team values – this recognised their teamwork and enthusiasm for the project.
Redrow’s contribution to the St John’s students’ project was significant. It enabled the purchase of a variety of motors and sensors that were used in developing their robot – giving them the best chance in the tournament.
Scott Granger is one of the participating students: “The team and I really enjoyed competing against similarly minded children and learning more about robotics.”
“The best part about building a robot is getting to investigate the ways in which coding allows them to complete certain tasks and so this competition was a great way for us to experience that.”
“We would also like to thank Redrow for supporting us and allowing us to buy all of the items we need to build the best possible Lego Mindstorm robot.”
Sabrina Dawson is area sales manager for Redrow South West : “Scott and his team did fantastically well in the competition and we were very pleased to support them during their venture.”
“A recent study by the Royal Academy of Engineering highlighted the need for 800,000 new science, engineering and technology professionals by 2020, and we are fully committed to fostering the next generation of talent.”
