We are absolutely delighted to announce that one of our Austin Friars teams has received an invitation to the international championships of a global LEGO competition in Greece after picking up 2 awards at the national finals in Bristol last week. This is first time in the history of the competition that a team from Cumbria has won through to compete abroad in the international championships!

2 teams of pupils, Dynamite 51 from the Junior School and Team Atlantis from the Senior School, travelled to Bristol on Saturday 22^nd February for the FIRST® LEGO® League England and Wales final, having secured their places during their respective County heats of the tournaments held in Carlisle and Workington last month.

The FIRST® LEGO® League is a global STEM-based competition for young people aged 9 – 16 years, designed to inspire the science and technology leaders of tomorrow.  Teams compete in a themed challenge, based on a real-world scientific topic, by building and programming an autonomous robot to solve a set of missions in a ‘Robot Game’, developing a solution to a problem they have identified in an ‘Innovation Project’, whilst operating under a universal set of ‘Core Values’ celebrating discovery, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism. The league attracts 310,400 participants in 38,800 teams from 100 countries around the world.

Team Atlantis, made up of pupils from 2nd to 4th Form, were the only team in the country to win two trophies at the national finals. They recorded the best score in the robot knockout challenge, and received a special Judges’ Award for their community innovation project on preventing flooding at Carlisle’s Sands Centre – accolades which earnt them their place at the international championships in Thessaloniki in Greece in May.

Team Atlantis draw a big crowd during their Robot Game Knockout stages - where they gained the most points of any team.

Fran Ward, co-director of C-STEM which, with the support of the charitable REACT Foundation, has organised Cumbria’s involvement in the competition for the last five years, said: “I am speechless. To have a team from Cumbria going abroad to the international championships is fantastic. “The standard of the competition has been higher than ever this year, and what Austin Friars have achieved is amazing.”

Our J3 Junior School team, Dynamite 51, also enjoyed great success in the flagship event of the day - the Robot Game - finishing 7^th out of 66 teams! This was truly a fantastic achievement, as this was their first ever year of competing, and against teams of pupils often much older than them.

Dynamite 51 showcase their Innovation Project

Headmaster, Mr Harris, said: “We are very excited and very proud of everyone involved - the children, teachers and parents. We invest a lot of time and resources on children being given the opportunity to develop as team players, with the ability to communicate effectively and confidence to work independently, with creativity to solve problems, and to be resilient. The FIRST LEGO League is a brilliant developmental experience, because the children learn to fail fast, try something else, and ultimately succeed. It is helping to inspire confidence and instil resilience and creative problem solving which are so important”.

Head of DT, Mr Ord, reiterated “This is a wonderful achievement by our students who have demonstrated a range of skill sets from the world of engineering. While demonstrating Team Atlantis had programmed the best robot at the event, the pupils also showed creativity and confidence during several presentation opportunities. Best of all, this was a fitting way for our older students to sign off from this event while passing the baton onto our younger engineers.” Mr Robinson, Assistant Head of the Junior School added “Dynamite 51 have already started plans for Robot improvements for next year!”.

We’d like to give special thanks to the teachers, mentors and parents who helped inspire and encourage the pupils - Mr Ord, Mr Robinson, Mr Palmer and Mr Woolaghan, co-founder of REACT Engineering, Createc and the REACT Foundation.

Click on the image below to watch Dynamite 51's Robot in action (opens in YouTube)