Harrow Way students have triumphed at a recent First Lego League competition winning a trophy for the ‘Most Innovative Idea’ for their creative solution to improve the journey of products by designing a Bluetooth stamp.
Pitting their wits against six other teams, the ten Harrow Way students from Years 7 to 10 took part in the global science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) competition which was held at the LEGOLAND hotel resort in Windsor. The theme for this year’s Challenge category was ‘Cargo Connect’ and the Harrow Way team were first up in front of the judges to present their innovative project idea, their findings, concept design and mission strategies for the robot game competition.
For the innovative project students were tasked with exploring the ins and outs of modern transportation. Their winning idea was a Bluetooth stamp which could be used to track parcels anywhere in the delivery process, not just at the point of being scanned or in a van in order to overcome the issue of scanning machine failure and label damage.
Commenting on the students’ success Donna Robertson, Curriculum Leader ICT and Computing said: “The First Lego League competitions are a brilliant way to encourage students to engage in coding, develop their critical thinking and design skills. I am so proud of the team’s success. They put hours of research and preparation in ahead of this competition which has seen them excel on the day. Our thanks to Chris, a scientist from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory for his help with the robot design and to both Stannah and Ocado for their support and feedback with the innovative project and preparing students for the challenge.”
To succeed in the robot competition the students spent hours researching, designing and creating a LEGO robot. Their problem-solving and coding know-how was put to the test as they were tasked with creating their own game practice game table, then build and programme their LEGO robots in order to compete in a series of challenges.
Commenting on the competition student Thomas Bedwell said: “We spent a lot of time after school using the trial and error method to test our code for the robot competition side of the contest. We made several modifications to the robot design over the development stages to make sure we were successful on the day. I have learnt so much over the past few months, made new friends and had lots of fun. I have also learned a lot and cannot wait for next year’s competition. It was a great experience.”
Student Catherine Massey also found the experience very enjoyable saying: “I thought that going to the competition was an amazing experience. It was fascinating to see how other teams approached the competition. Overall I really enjoyed it and had lots of fun.”