Mr Miles runs the First Lego League club in school. Students develop a robot to take to competitions where the robot has to be able to complete certain tasks to achieve points for the teams. 

Mr Miles gives us this report from the recent competition at the Winchester Science Centre. 

 

We arrived at the Winchester Science centre apprehensive about the task ahead. There were going to be three-two and a half minute sessions on the Lego table in which we had to try to get as many points as possible by sending the robot on missions to pick up and put down various set pieces of equipment around the competition table. These different pieces of equipment were designed around a theme of Hydrodynamics – looking after water supplies for the world’s population. The distance the robot was from base and the difficulty of the task dictated the points received and you lost points for touching or picking up the Robot out of base. The first two missions saw us achieve a maximum of 65 points, putting us in second place on the competition league table – with a total of thirteen teams competing.

The day also required our BGS, “Scorpion”, team present a project on how we might address one particular problem with the water supply. We choose storm drains and the need to stop rubbish, both “hard” rubbish and “soft” rubbish such as oil, polluting the water system. We also had to show how we worked as a team and produce a detailed account of our robot mechanical and software design.

The third go on the table was very tense viewing for all those not actually starting the programs and adding attachments to the robot on the table during the 150 seconds of the competition. The alarm went to signal the start of the time and our robot was sent out three times from base, taking 30 seconds before it managed to do a task it had previously taken 10 seconds to do. But from then on it was pure mastery – following its predetermined path to get a total of 125 points – more than 40% more points than any other team!

The final award ceremony was scary but it seemed our overall performance was enough to get us FIRST PLACE and TAKE US TO THE NATIONAL FINALS AGAIN !!!

Well done to Rikho L, Ethan S, Marianne C, Salam G, Ibrahim I, Bhaskar N and Aishani S who were representing BGS on the day. A massive thank you also must go to Josh Lwho was the team directive through the three months leading up to the competition but who was unable to go. Also, a massive thank you to Adnan S who acted as an amazing mentor using his experiences over the last five years in Lego and also to Mr. Featherstone who helped out with logistics many weeks before and on the day of the competition and Ms Gockelen who helped and supported us on the day.