UK schools robot competition lead by EPSRC

A robotic design competition for the UK’s school children, based on an on-line game, has been launched by the government’s UK Robotics & Autonomous Systems Network (UK-RAS Network) and educational publishers Twinkl.

The School Robot Competition invites children aged between 8 and 14 (upper KS2-KS3) to design a robot that can move across Mars and complete various tasks and challenges on the planet’s surface.

“This partnership between Twinkl and the EPSRC UK-RAS Network has delivered a fantastic platform that will enable schoolchildren to develop important STEM capabilities in programming, debugging, engineering and the fundamentals of robotics development,” said EPSRC UK-RAS Network chair Professor Guang-Zhong Yang.

These are virtual robots, designed by the schoolchildren using an app on screen, which are then tested against a virtual Martian surface in ‘play’ mode.

“Through building robots, schoolchildren will acquire robotic technology fundamentals and research skills, and be given the opportunity to demonstrate their creativity and learn the joy of engineering,” said UK-RAS Network.

The competition is one of a series of activities taking place as part of UK Robotics Week (24-27 June 2019) by the Network.

Competition winners will be announced at the International Robotics Showcase – to be held at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 27 June 2019.

There are prizes, including: all-expense paid trip to London, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and MiRo-E Robot – the latter an AI robot adapted for education with a programming interface aimed at students.

The School Robot Competition app is available through the competition website, the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The app, written by Twinkl, has a range of components to build, program and test robot designs, spanning:

build mode – connecting sensors and motors to a base block
program mode – input code to determine how the robot moves
play mode – testing the robot with various challenges on Mars

“Twinkl was set the challenge by the EPSRC UK-RAS Network of inspiring children to become science and technology leaders – a challenge that we’re already well-versed in,” said Twinkl CTO Pete Casson. “Our solution was to use our technology to bring coding and robotics to schoolchildren in a way that puts collaboration and communication first. Our app achieves these goals on an inclusive platform that is accessible to all learners – building confidence in those looking to learn whilst challenging children with skills to showcase.”

Competition entries close on 14th June 2019.