Year 9’s have won the regional finals of the Tomorrow’s Engineers Robotics Challenge culminating in the opportunity to represent Northern Ireland in the National Finals in Birmingham in March!
The Challenge
This was a fun, team-based competition- created by the Helsington Foundation in conjunction with the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge and delivered by EngineeringUK.
Our pupils took part in an exciting voyage of exploration and discovery, fuelled by the STEM curriculum. The boys have sustained a huge effort, working three days a week for a number of months led by Mrs O’Neill and Mr McDonagh. Open to schools across the UK, the competition in Dungannon attracted entries from schools across Northern Ireland for the Regional Finals.
The pupils had to work with real life problems in need of innovative engineering, technology and computing solutions- all based on the application of key maths, physics and IT thinking… plus lots of Robot building! In the Robotics challenge, fortune favoured the adventurous team players with great resilience, the will to learn and a ‘can-do’ attitude. As our boys demonstrated these qualities in abundance it is easy to see why they led us to victory!
The competition day consisted of; • A speed Challenge- Building and programming a robot to cover a large distance at great speeds. • Robotics Mat challenge- Advanced technical building and programming to complete a series of tasks. • Research Presentation- A formal presentation to a panel of judges on the solution to the problem ‘How could Engineers support humanitarian aid in the future?’ • Robot Design- Team presentation presenting their robots to the judges. • Team work Challenge- an unseen task that required the boys to work together to come to a solution.
Long Term Benefits
The primary long term aim is to immerse young people in critical engineering principals, equipping them with keys skills that, in years to come, can open the door to promising and rewarding careers.
Now the boys will begin the journey towards the National Finals we wish them continuing success representing Northern Ireland in the next round.