Flying High
Posted On: 07/12/15
On Saturday CRGS fielded two teams in their first ever attempt at the Lego League. Held inside Duxford’s Hangar 1 at the Imperial War Museum our teams, ‘Trasher Hunters’ and ‘L-TEK’ lined up against thirteen other teams from the East of England to compete in a four phase competition. The phases; Core Values, Project, Robot construction and Robot competition were tackled by all of the teams throughout the day. The theme for First Lego League in 2015 is ‘Trash Trek’ where students had to design, build and program an autonomous Lego robot to complete 10 challenges based on waste and recycling. Our teams consisting of 15 students in total across years 7 to 11 worked together to gain points dependant on the number and difficulty of the challenges completed. Going into the competition both teams felt up against the odds with the challenges being very difficult to complete; reliability of their robots the main issue. On the day CRGS fortunes improved from the outset. While Trasher Hunters presented their Core Values to the judging panel, L-TEK went to the competition table to go head to head against the Ipswich School. Both Robots going about their frantic business, completing challenges in the two and a half minute time limit. By the end of Round 1 CRGS teams were in 3rd and 4th place on the leader board much to their surprise; positive results doubling earnest adaptations and improvements to their robots before the next 2 rounds. Through the day teams completed all the presentations and competition rounds. The final competition outcome placed L-TEK in 5th and Trasher Hunters in 8th, battery failure in the last round cutting short a high score. For first year teams their achievements were fantastic proving that CRGS spirit, endeavour and teamworking is an indomitable characteristic of all our students. At the end of an excellent day we were able to view the iconic planes housed in the IWM and ponder on how to perform better next year with a view to reaching the world final of First Lego League in the USA next season.
