Students build cities in RAF Cosford robot challenge
Students took part in an ultimate robot war to build a cityscape that's out of this world at RAF Cosford.
The First Tech Challenge UK's regional tournament involved competitors using their robots to build their vision, as they battled it our to qualify for a place in the national final.
Schoolchildren from across Shropshire, the West Midlands and Staffordshire met once a week for several weeks and, with the support of mentors, designed and built their robots while building their knowledge in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.
Teams competed head to head to score the most points in matches lasting two minutes and 30 seconds. With many ways to score points, teams executed game strategies to drive beneath bridges, manoeuvre game elements into position and build structures using blocks known as stones. The more stones they built with, the more points they score.
The first 30 seconds included an autonomous period where the robots were pre-programmed to manoeuvre on the game field and pick up objects using vision technology. The matches continued with 90 seconds of live gameplay, controlled by two drivers. Matches concluded with a 30-second ‘end game’ where teams must move their cityscape foundation and park their robots in an alliance base.
Patrice John-Baptiste, storyteller for First Tech Challenge UK, said: "It was really interesting. A lot of the teams who were competing were involved for the first time and it was their first experience of building a robot, and there were some that were a bit more advanced. The quality was fantastic and it was interesting to see the different approaches that teams took. The atmosphere was electric.
"It brought together robotics and a sporting environment so there was a lot of cameraderie between competitors."
