Teams of Year 7 students from Devon Schools came together on Wednesday 26th March at Petroc College in Barnstaple for the conclusion of the third annual North Devon Robotics Challenge, sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The teams, comprising four pairs of Year 7 students had been working on four challenges, which they had been provided by the event organisers, for six weeks, in after school clubs or lunchtime clubs.
One of the challenges was to design a conceptual robot to help with maintenance of roads, rivers or land, while the other three challenges required Edison robots to be programmed to address specified challenges. The first programming challenge was to program the robot to drive around a figure-of-8 circuit as many times as possible in one minute, without the robot leaving the figure-of-8 track. The second programming challenge was to navigate a slalom course which contained immovable obstacles as quickly as possible, and the third challenge was to add Lego components to the robot to enable a Lego brick to be thrown at a target, to hit the target as high as possible.
The conceptual design challenge was won by South Molton Community College with a submersible robot to reinvigorate and restore coral reefs. The judges were impressed by the breadth and depth of thinking that had gone into the definition of the task objective, the equipment’s design and its operation both autonomously and in diverse systems including other robots and human divers. All the teams chose to design robots to help with environmental protection, with varying degrees of design ideas and concepts.
The figure-of-8 race challenge was addressed with different programming strategies by different teams. It proved to be quite a difficult challenge, as the robot had to decide of it was about to exit the outside of the figure-of-8, or if it was about to cross the inside boundaries of the figure. This challenge was also won by the team from South Molton Community College.
The slalom challenge was won by the team from Blundells School. No team made it through the whole course in the allowed time, but the Blundells team covered the most distance within the time before leaving the course. Their programming strategy was interesting, with the robot program designed to follow the outside line of the slalom course until it met an obstacle, at which point, it would try to make its way round the obstacle until it got back to the outside line.
The challenge to throw the Lego brick resulted in some very clever Lego design constructions, the majority based on a trebuchet principle. The challenge rules limited the maximum height of the Lego construction to 15cm, and the teams produce creditable results in a very close contest. The challenge was won by South Molton Community College with a height of 128cm, just 1cm ahead of second placed Uffculme School.
The final (fun) challenge was for the teams to navigate a robot though a maze using an infrared handset. This challenge was won by the team from Uffculme School.
The overall winner of the 2025 competition was the team from South Molton Community College, who finished just ahead of second placed Blundells School.
All the teams taking part took part in a friendly spirit of competition. They had a lot of fun, worked hard, and learned a lot about engineering challenges.
The competition was organised by the IET Devon and Cornwall Local Network, with prized provided by The IET. The organisers are also grateful to Petroc College for providing an excellent venue, Firefly Robotics Educational Charity and STEM ambassadors Olivia and Clive for their help in judging the competition.