‘ROBO RIDERS’ BRING HOME SILVERWARE FROM FINALS
WICKLOW Montessori Primary School beat off stiff competition to be presented with the Judges’ Award at the Robotics First Lego League International Competition finals in Bath recently.
Eight pupils from the school were representing Ireland in the competition after they finished top in the challenge here.
The Robo Riders team of Charlie Clarke, Lucy Doherty, Luke Fitzpatrick, Michael Mooney, Ava Paris Neiland, Ciara Nolan, Callum O’Reilly and Daniel Walton travelled to the international leg of the competition with their teacher Erica Gallagher.
‘The event went really well and we were delighted to be honoured with the Judges’ Award,’ Erica told the Wicklow People.
Teams participate in the challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game), developing a solution to a problem they have identified (Project), all guided by the First Lego League Core Values.
The Montessori entry focused on how humans interact with animals.
The problem they identified was the cost of equine therapy for families who have a child with autism and the fact there are no such facilities in Wicklow town and surrounding area, the nearest location being Festina Lente in Bray.
‘We also beat our highest score of 90 points which we got in Ireland and achieved 131 points in Bath which is extremely impressive.’
She also said the scale of the other robots in the competition ‘blew them away’.
‘We didn’t realise how big other students robots would be but other schools were highly impressed with our robot. The pupils gave a fantastic presentation and were extremely enthusiastic about the event.’