The extraordinary Engineering journey that the Eltham College team began in September, or three years ago for some, has taken them to Bristol last weekend (8 February) and to the National Finals of the First Lego League competition. This year around 28,000 teams worldwide competed in Robot Engineering, Research Project and Presentation, and Team Core Values, and Eltham College’s ‘Space Junk’ team made it through for the first time from the East London heats in January to represent the College and our region.
Friday morning saw us perfecting programs and collecting equipment, ready for the trip to the University of the West of England the following day. The competition on Saturday consisted of a complex morning of impressing judges and completing robot challenges. The frustration of misbehaving robots and reinventing programs from scratch was balanced by the enjoyment of presenting research on dealing with space debris the ideas of an United Nations of Space, and taking part in an amazing celebration of Engineering.
The team had to solve problems that they never anticipated and work together as a team like never before, and we are immensely proud of what they have achieved. By lunchtime it was over and a welcome, but nervous rest, to watch the awards ceremony to see which teams had been chosen to take the next step to represent the UK in either Turkey or the United States. It wasn’t to be this time, but the experience that the team has gained will be invaluable for years to come, and we will be back.
Huge thanks go to the IET for organising an amazing day at the University of the West of England, but we would never have got there without the volunteers who organised, judged and inspired the team in Bristol and back in London at Queen Mary University.
Team:
Rohan (Year 8), Lewis (Year 10), Nick (Year 10), Callum (Year 10), Ben C (Year 10), Ben A (Year 10), Alex (Year 10) Alex (Year 8), Orin (Year 10)
