One of 25 regional heats of the Tomorrow’s Engineers EEP Robotics Challenge, which sees students involved in ‘aviation missions’, has taken place at the University of Chester’s Thornton Science Park.
During the event, eight teams of school children (a total of 80 students) competed for a place at the UK finals, which took place at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair at the Birmingham NEC.
This event was one of many taking place at Thornton Science Park as part of the university’s STEM Outreach calendar.
The Tomorrow’s Engineers EEP Robotics Challenge introduced student teams to real-world engineering, technology, robotics and computing challenges. These aimed to help students put their school learning into context and discover exciting new careers.
The teams taking part included students from: Birkenhead School; Ridgeway High School, Birkenhead; The Bishops’ Blue Coat CE High School, Chester; The Grange Comprehensive School, Runcorn and The Mosslands School, Wallasey.
Each team had to learn how to build, programme and control autonomous Lego robots, to complete a series of short, exciting aviation themed missions.
Students also had to research, design and present their own solution to a contemporary engineering problem faced by STEM professionals in the aviation industry.
The students then demonstrated the skills they had learnt at the event at Thornton, which was organised by Angela Lupton, higher education STEM co-ordinator in the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
She said: “We are pleased to be sharing our science and engineering facilities at Thornton Science Park with EngineeringUK, who run the Tomorrow’s Engineers EEP Robotics Challenge.
“We have received excellent feedback from EngineeringUK, to say that everyone enjoyed a fantastic day of activities. What a great way to get even more young people involved in STEM activities.”
The winning team from Mosslands School went on to take part in the finals at the Birmingham NEC.
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Adrian Whiteley, headteacher at Mosslands School, said: “We were delighted to see our younger teams do so well in this competition. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had a great time in Birmingham at the national finals.
“We didn’t receive a placement at the finals, but the boys had a fantastic day and we’re very proud of them. They are already looking forward to the next STEM challenge!”
