Year 7 teams from five Devon schools met at Petroc College, Barnstaple on Wednesday 20 March to compete in the North Devon Robotics Challenge, sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the North Devon Manufacturers’ Association. The event was organised by the IET Devon and Cornwall local network, and supported by Petroc College.

The teams of eight boys and girls have been working in pairs on four challenges; three involving programming Edison robots to address engineering challenges, and a fourth challenge to design, on paper, a robot help with an aspect of the local maritime industry.

On Wednesday afternoon, the teams came together to show what they had achieved. The first challenge was to program the robot to race around an octagonal course as many times as possible in a minute; the second challenge was to program the robot to clear as many bricks as possible from a square area in a minute, and the third challenge was to add Lego type components to the robot and program it to throw a brick as far as possible.

Edison robot in the throwing challenge - how far can the robot throw a Lego brick

Park Community School, Barnstaple set the benchmark in the race challenge, achieving seven and a half laps, only beaten by the last team to compete, Kingsley School, Bideford, who achieved seven and five eight laps. South Molton Community College set the benchmark in the throwing challenge with a remarkable and unbeaten throw of 2.33 metres, while Braunton Academy achieved the best result in the block clearing challenge.

Teamwork in the block clearing challenge

The design challenge was won by Queen Elizabeth’s School Crediton, with what the judges described as a top class engineering design. The design was for a robotic beacon to warn boats of the presence of eelgrass, an important ecosystem for young fish. The robot would submerge and surface automatically with rechargeable batteries and temporarily bury itself in sand when sea conditions became rough, while containing a GPS tracker, so its position could be tracked.

The team from Queen Elizabeth’s School also performed consistently well in the other challenges, and ran out as overall winners with a total of 109 points, ahead of Kingsley School with 104 points and South Molton Community College with 102 points.

Prizes of £150  and £100 were presented to the teams by Rob Scarr on behalf of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and prizes will be awarded to the design challenge winners from Queen Elizabeth’s School by the North Devon Manufacturers’ Association later this year at their annual awards ceremony.

The winning team from Queen Elizabeth's Achool, Credton with team manager, Euan Ripper and event organiser, Rob Scarr from the IET

Following the event, Queen Elizabeth School gave part of the prize money to the competing students, and put the rest towards buying a 3D printer. The outstanding work of Euan Ripper, a sixth form student at Queen Elizabeth School, who managed the winning team, has been recognised by his school with the award of the Headteacher’s Annual Award. Kingsley School put their prize money towards buying a set of Edison robots. Kingsley School will use these robots as part of their students’ computing education, and also use the robots to help the homeschool community as part of their outreach program.