Helston was alive with the sound of robots on Saturday as 450 primary school children descended on Helston for the FLL Regional Final. The event was held at the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) Culdrose base. This year’s creative competition seemed especially well-suited to the thrilling theme of archaeology. Students jumped into the excitement of constructing and writing code for their Lego robots to accomplish different missions on a competition table.
Among the participants were Tamsin Melville from Helston and George Thorpe from the South West, who played significant roles in this engaging event. The competition was a great way to focus on the pupils’ engineering prowess and showed how teamwork and collaboration with peers is essential too.
Felicity Blight, school secretary at Porthleven School, highlighted the value of the competition for STEM education. She stated, “It really builds on their STEM learning, they get to do a lot of coding and a lot of teamwork.” That sentiment was seconded by fellow roboticist George Slater, who commented on the difficulty involved in programming the robots.
“The robots are not perfect, they will go wrong and they do go wrong, but the children get through that and persevere.” – George Slater
Elowyn, one of the young participants, shared her excitement about the experience. She explained, “It’s a great experience for kids our age because you’re learning and still having fun.” This combination of learning and fun was evident all day long as students enthusiastically presented their work.
The faceoff awakened the competitive spirit of these young innovators to impress with innovation and creativity. Importantly, it ignited a love for engineering among participants. Participants earned their coding badges by working feverishly to program their robots, showing off some serious technical skills. The energy in the room was palpable as teams raced against each other while working together to troubleshoot and program their robots to complete an array of challenges.
Throughout the competition, students faced victory and defeat, proving that building the resilience to learn is a vital lesson among any other. The hands-on approach encouraged students to think critically and work together effectively.