Lego robot designed by Bradford school pupils to take on the world
A group of school pupils have flown to Florida to represent the UK in the finals of a Lego robotics competition.The students from Bradford Grammar School are taking part in the First Lego League Challenge.They secured their spot in the finals after seeing off competition from 900 other teams in the UK.The school's head of Computer Science, Nadeem Asghar, who also runs the Lego Robotics club, said the victory in the UK finals was "completely unexpected".
"It's just a lunchtime club," he said."It's just a bit of fun, a bit of Lego, obviously doing the best we can, but the intention was never to get to the internationals."The First Lego League Challenge is an international STEM competition that develops skills in coding, design and research.Teams were challenged to build and programme a robot capable of carrying out a series of tasks within a set amount of time and then to complete a STEM-based innovation project.Harry, 16, a member of the team - known as the Incredilegos - said it was a "dream come true" to reach the final."I never would have thought in a million years we would have been representing the UK at Lego robotics."
For the second part of the competition, the students worked together to create a computer game, Ocean Quest, which teaches players about oceans."You're playing a game while learning about stuff," said 13-year-old Aziza.Mr Asghar said the team had impressed the UK judges and hoped they would continue to impress in Florida."They liked the design, the fact it's compact and the fact it is so easy to take attachments on and off it," he said."They like to see the problem solving aspects and that is what the team really manged to highlight and demonstrate."The students have been refining their robot since their UK triumph ahead of the finals, which begin later."We hope to make BGS proud in Florida, what a great year for Bradford," Harry said.Aziza said winning had "meant so much to the team" and they were looking forward to representing the school in the USA.
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