Shrewsbury students build for success in Lego tournament

Two lower school female students representing Concord College achieved a third overall finish in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge.

The Chinese duo of Zoie Tsang, 14, and Lisa Lin, 16, were selected to compete due to their robot design, build and coding skills.

The Acton Burnell-based college were taking part in the regional tournament in Coventry, which is an annual challenge for nine to 16-year-olds, designed to encourage an interest in real world themes and develop key skills crucial for careers.

Teams were assessed on four key criteria: robots design, core values, innovation project and robot game.

Mark Weston, Concord College physics teacher, said: “The theme for the regional tournament was cargo and logistics. To meet the judging criteria the students spent several days designing, building and coding their robot.

“The robot game element consisted of three games, the aim of which was to pick up points to get the robot to autonomously complete as many different missions on the game table area in just 2.5 minutes.”

In addition to their third-place finish, Zoie and Lisa received an accolade for the best robot design.

Judges commented on how impressed they were that the students had made full use of sensors, as well as coding their robot to react intuitively to its surroundings.

Mr Weston added: “We will continue to increase STEM opportunities and extracurricular activities for our students and look forward to competing again next year.”