Loreto compete in London Lego robotics competition

The Robotics team from Loreto Convent School won the Innovation Project award in the First Lego League’s (FLL) International competition in London last weekend.

The team, named Loretanics, was comprised of nine Year 6 pupils, six of whom represented the team in the UK at The Institute for Engineering and Technology.
They won a prize for their innovative project, which focused on Gibraltar and its history, which they presented to a panel of judges.

The project was based on this year’s challenge theme Submerged and was created during their lunchtime club sessions throughout the school year.

Last September, the team decided to take a twist and a risk, turning the theme inside out, or upside down.

Rather than going underwater and being submerged, the team decided to look at how the Rock of Gibraltar was formed by the land around becoming submerged and thus forming the Mediterranean Sea.

As part of this, the team spoke about key points through history, especially Neanderthal Man, along with the Sieges and battles over the Rock.

Constructed entirely from Lego, the team presented the judges with a model of Gibraltar showing how the land became flooded with water.

They highlighted the distance between continents which led onto the second part of the presentation based on the team’s innovation project.

Still on the theme for the challenge, the team spoke about how they would build a submerged, underwater, highspeed train tunnel to link the continents.

The team presented a model which showed the tunnel’s creative design using a series of tubes with protective and buoyant materials around them.

The tubes were made from a special water reactive material so that if a leak appeared, the material would react sealing the hole.

Although the tunnel was buoyant and could float, it was also attached to several giant floating solar powered fields which gave the tunnel renewable power and many escape pods in case of an emergency.

The team were asked numerous questions about their project, which they answered with confidence and passion.

After 30 minutes, the team emerged happy, with beaming smiles and high fives all around.

The team also had the opportunity to experience a judged practice match for the robot element, the intensity of a real match and then recode anything that needed tweaking before their scored matches.

Teams had three hours to build an object from Lego.

They started straight away, visiting a massive Lego pit with every Lego piece imaginable on offer.

The team discussed their ideas and, during the morning, created their masterpiece to be judged.

Three judged robot matches were attended by Loretanics throughout the day.

At school, the pupils were able to work out how to complete the challenges, making accessories for the robot out of Lego and coding using the Spike program.

They worked well collaborating on the challenges, incorporating the First Lego Leagues’ core values.

Loretanics gained 60 points in their first round, 105 points in their second round, and 50 points in their third round. Overall, 215 points obtained in just three rounds of two and a half minutes during intense pressure, which they coped with well.

The winning team scored 500 points and were regional champions last year.

Of five trophies available to win, the Loretanics won the Innovation Project award and were presented with individual medals along with a big Lego trophy.

Mr Devincenzi-Clemens, Senior Teacher for Computing at Loreto Convent School, was amazed at how professional the team members were throughout the challenge day.
“It has been very busy since September and the Loreto pupils, Advay, Bella, Bill, Krish, Jesus and Uri have done extremely well, last year the team won a small trophy for being the best team displaying the core values in troubling times, this year we have a bigger trophy to display at school,” Devincenzi-Clemens said.

“I would like to thank our sponsor Julian from FOSSA Satellite IOT for sponsoring Team Loretanics this year.”

“Remember, teamwork makes the dreamwork. I would also like to thank Mr McCauliffe and Miss Lucidi from Prior Park School for their support in the Lego Robotics journey.”

The teams were assessed throughout the day on the FLL core values.

From the start they cooperated with other teams, one required some extra Lego parts as an emergency, to which Loretanics had with them and passed on.

Upon returning the parts they gave Loretanics a thank you note.

Headteacher Mrs Napoli added: “It is wonderful that we give the pupils at Loreto the opportunity to learn, participate in and enjoy current and emerging new educational experiences. The pupils thoroughly enjoy the coding and Robtics opportunities that we offer.”

Loretanics team member Bella said the competition helped her make good friendships.
“It was really exciting and very good as I gained in confidence,” she said.
Another team member Uri added that the trip was amazing, he had lots of fun exploring London.

“I am really happy about the trophy that we won, and I think we really deserved it,” he said.

“The robotics competition was absolutely brilliant because we worked as a team.”

“One of my favourite bits was after the day we would play video games and watch movies together.”