School of Engineering host FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge
University of Birmingham host regional LEGO®-based challenge, a global STEM programme organised by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) in the UK.
The FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge is a competition for 9-16-year-olds that promotes engineering careers through fun, team-based activities and competition.
The challenge has four parts – Robot Game, Robot Design, Innovation Project and Core Values. The theme of this year's challenge is SUBMERGED, which asks participants to explore the layers of the ocean and innovations required for healthy oceans.
Each team begins by researching a topic related to the challenge theme before designing, building, and programming an autonomous LEGO robot to navigate the missions of a robot game before presenting their innovation project to the judges. Teams are judged on their robot design, including their design process, decisions, and how they refined their design after initial testing.
At the heart of the LEGO League are core values of discovery, innovation, impact, inclusion, teamwork and fun, and the tournament day at the University of Birmingham reflected all of these and more. The teams were welcomed to the University with an opening ceremony and an introduction to research in the School of Engineering. Students from the Robotics Society and PhD students from the School's Makerspace facility were on hand throughout the day to help the teams, talk to them about engineering and answer any questions – or share their love of LEGO.
The Robot Competition comprises three matches in which teams must complete as many missions as possible in two and a half minutes; this was won by Concord College, who had a very impressive run in their second match.
RGS Worcester Team A won the Robot Design Award as they demonstrated a clear mission strategy, and the judges liked that everyone in the team contributed ideas.
RGS Worcester Team B won the Innovation Project Award. The judges thought the team showed great enthusiasm for this year's theme and had considered the environmental issues and the impact of their solution.
After the tournament, the teams took a tour of the Makerspace and met Spot, the School's robot dog. The day ended with a trophy presentation ceremony for all awards, including the Coach/Mentor trophy given to Mr Pope from RGS Worcester after his team spoke enthusiastically about how inspiring and fun he had made the day.
In addition, the team from Dame Elizabeth Cadbury School were presented with the Judge's Trophy. This award was given for resilience; the judges were very impressed with how well the team coped when things didn't go to plan on the day and how they worked together to ensure they had a working robot.
The final trophy was the Tournament Champions Trophy, which went to the team with the best overall performance across the four parts of the challenge – Robot Game, Robot Design, Innovation Project and Core Values. This was won by Concord College, who will now progress to the National Finals in May.