Year 8 students had a brilliant day on Friday at a robotics challenge day hosted at The Whitehaven Academy in collaboration with RAICo1 – a joint robotics initiative involving The University of Manchester, UK Atomic Energy Authority, National Nuclear Laboratory and Sellafield Ltd.
Students from Cumbria Education Trust schools, William Howard School, Workington Academy and The Whitehaven Academy, worked together in mixed teams on challenges to create programmable robots. They were tasked to program a car using micro:bit and create a crane that could pick up an object and move it up and down. The final mission was to build a ‘carrier trailer’ to sit on the back of their car and programme it to move left, right, forward, backwards, and then collect objects and make it back to a spot marked with the CET logo.
There were very generous prizes for the winners: the winning team shared a £250 prize; second-place was awarded £150; and third-place received £100. The first-place team consisted of Poppy, Daniel, and Annie. The second-place team was made up of George, Chloe, and Max, and the third-place team was Gracie-Ava, Emila, and Alice.
All the students should be commended for their excellent teamwork with their peers from the other school.
The companies involved are outstanding in their field, so the students were incredibly fortunate to work on the project which provided them an insight into the robotics industry and inspire them for their future career
The day was a great success, enjoyed by all, and everyone is looking forward to an even bigger event next year.
