Lego League Final - February 2022

In February 2022 half-term holiday, “Team Dynamite”: Zaki R (Year 7), Anisa R, Lillia N, Hannah B, Ben W, and Odelle P (all in Year 9), from Calthorpe’s STEM Club went on an exciting 3-day residential trip to Harrogate and York. We were going to face 64 different teams who had all won regional competitions to get through to the acclaimed Lego League National Finals. We were travelling by minibus with our two valiant STEM Club teachers: Mr Lugg and Mr Bernard-Patel. An extra member of staff accompanied us: Miss Bone!

All of us were extremely pleased when we found out that, even though the hardships of covid were around, we could attend the competition in person and experience a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity! On arrival at the competition, we learned that the competition aim was to program our Lego robot (the Cat, named by Ben) to complete missions set by the judges. Our missions included directing our robot to different stations around the board to score points, using codes we had all contributed into creating, and hopefully scoring highly on the leader board! We were required to show Team Core Values, such as “Teamwork” and “Having Fun!”

The Lego League hosts were giving a running commentary by a speaker and microphone on the competitors’ progress, so the competition hall was exploding with a variety of noise and distractions as we racked our brains for incredible solutions and ideas. The whole team were facing challenges and were all beginning to feel the growing pressure of the rising odds, as well as the thudding beats of our hearts as we braced for the battle that would change our lives.

Despite some troubling accidents along our path to success, Team Dynamite strived on towards the thrilling end of the competition and were delighted when finding out we had scored 24th out of the 64 highly talented competitors. What a success! We are all extremely proud of our outstanding team and have high expectations for next year!  To our joy and pure excitement, we also won one of the prestigious “Judges’ Award” Cup! This was based on our extraordinary presentation to the panel of judges. Our presentation was about an incredible app we created for delivering parcels by foot or by bike. Carbon emissions are set to increase by 30% by 2030 and our idea was to reduce carbon emissions in the last mile of the cargo journey, which is the part delivered by vans and delivery trucks.

We could not have enjoyed this incredible trip or achieved our competition wins without the help and organisation from Mr Lugg, Mr Bernard-Patel, and Miss Bone - a big thank you to them all!