End-Tech, an energetic group of student innovators from Endon High School in Staffordshire, recently pulled off a spectacular upset. To everyone’s surprise, they won their regional Lego competition! Made up of five members, including Owen, James and Malachi, the squad finished ahead of rivals from as far afield as Bradford. This win embodies their amazing skill and pure talent. It wins them the mighty accolade of being allowed to represent Staffordshire at next year’s national tournament, which takes place in Harrogate.
The regional contest showcased various teams competing in a series of challenges, each designed to test their robotic creations. End-Tech’s robot, featuring state of the art colour sensors, made it through several rounds of obstacles as it completed the challenges put forth by the judges. The team’s efforts were rewarded with points for successfully completing these challenges, including a presentation about their innovative robot.
Malachi said, “This is our second victory in a row at this level. He also conceded that the competition was tougher this year, because “teams are better this year.” This new, elite level of competition challenged End-Tech to further tune and perfect their robot even more.
The team spent hundreds of hours designing, building and programming their robot. They put in serious hours, both in and out of school, leading up to the contest. They focused on new tactics, such as adopting newer strategies like moving to a coding software that uses Python. “We’ve swapped to a new coding software that uses Python so it’s much more accurate than it used to be,” Malachi explained. This was a lucky change that really helped improve the robot’s performance.
Owen further elaborated on the changes they made to improve their creation. “We’ve got a whole different robot with colour sensors this time, that makes it a bit easier to use,” he noted. These improvements played a large role in their winning the competition.
Having achieved a regional victory, End-Tech are now set to go on and represent Staffordshire at the national tournament in Harrogate. They’re set to compete in the first Lego League UK National Final later this year. Their success story, from local rival to national representatives, is a testament to their commitment and talent in the world of robotics.