The Final Challenge
On Friday 15th March, we hosted six teams of talented students aged 9-16 at our Bosch UK Headquarters in Denham. This marked the third and final FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge tournament the London North West region. The teams arrived with their LEGO robots and innovation projects, which they had been working on for up to six months. They were eager to put their STEM skills and knowledge of this year's ‘Masterpiece’ theme to the test.
The highlight of day was the mission-based robotics game, consisting of three matches. The teams competed against each other and the clock, striving to complete as many missions as possible within a two-and-a-half-minute round. Additionally, each team had to present their 'Innovation Project,' which involved finding a solution to a real-world problem related to the theme, masterpiece. This project not only assessed their creativity but also their ability to work together as a team.
Not only did the students have fun, but they also developed a wide range of skills that will benefit them in their future career pursuits.
Gavin Woodruff, Education Sponsorship Manager at the IET said: “The skills students get from the program are really diverse. They aren’t limited to just the engineering, coding and building skills, but also the employability skills, the resilience and the teambuilding that are so valuable but often lost in the school environment.”
“This is definitely a life changing experience. There's no doubt about that. The kids grow through hard work, patience and perseverance. I could see that they progressed a lot in terms of their skills.” – Sellami Meliani, Coach of winners RealTechBot.
None of this would have been possible without the invaluable contribution of our 30 Bosch volunteers, who served as judges, referees and general volunteers. Their enthusiasm and dedication not only ensured the success of the event but also aimed to inspire the next generation, who will shape the future workforce.
“As a software engineer, I want to help kids understand that software represents real systems that directly interact with the real world and show that coding is really important in ways that can’t necessarily be taught.” – Dave George, Software Developer at ETAS and Head Judge at Denham tournament.
Nulan Ilamperuma Arachchige, a Management Accounting Intern at Bosch UK, who attended the event as an event volunteer, also talked about how impressed he was at the students’ existing understanding of STEM. “It was really inspiring to see how ambitious these kids are about engineering despite their young age!”
After an exciting day, the students gathered for the awards ceremony, where each team received recognition for their strengths and achievements. RealTechBot, building on their success from last year, impressed the Bosch judges once again with their robot performance and innovation project presentation. They will now progress to the National finals in Harrogate, where they will compete against winners from other tournaments.
We would like to congratulate all the teams for their outstanding effort and commitment. The next Lego League event is the National Finals in Harrogate on April 20th. Additionally, we will be hosting ‘Explore’ festivals in Worcester, St Neots, and Denham in July.
Here is a full list of the winners.
Tournament Champions – RealTechBot,
Innovation Project award - Gordon's School,
Robot Performance award - Home Ed Engineers,
Robot Design award - The Laurels School,
Bosch Resilience award - St Margarets School,
Core Value award - Nower Hill High School.
What is Lego League?
FIRST® LEGO® League is an exciting hands-on program which engages children between the ages of 4-16 to understand the basics of STEM and apply their skills in an exciting competition. The ‘Challenge tournament, allows the older students, aged between 9-16 to practice their skills in research, problem-solving, coding, and engineering to better prepare them for their future careers.