Lego Robotics Challenge 2023: Team Overcomes Adversity to Win Motivation Award
A team of four designers, engineers, and coders, along with their robots K9 and Klaus, recently competed in the annual Lego Robotics Challenge at RNAS Culdrose. Despite facing several setbacks, the team's grit, determination, and cool composure under pressure impressed the judges and earned them the Motivation Award.
On Wednesday, 8th March 2023, the team encountered heavy traffic through Truro on their way to the competition, and the "main road" leading to their destination was closed due to an accident. Although they arrived an hour late, they remained unfazed until they discovered that the code for their robots had vanished from their laptops, rendering K9 and Klaus inoperative.
Undeterred, Reuben (team leader) directed his team members Toby (engineer), Abi (robot placement), and Holly (programmer) to frantically reprogram the robots. Fortunately, the team had time on their side as their contest slot was later in the day. After two hours of careful reprogramming, the team faced another obstacle when they realised that using two robots was in breach of protocol. Instead of sacrificing one robot, they combined K9 and Klaus into one, requiring code merging and careful tinkering of the hardware.
Despite the challenges, the heavily upgraded K9 rolled into battle and achieved a score of 165, earning the team a respectable 4th place on the leader board. The judges were impressed with the team's efforts and awarded them the Motivation Award.
The team, who dubbed themselves "Team Cursed" on the day, thanked their fellow team members Eddy, Ellie, Paige, and Violet for their technical support and innovation throughout the development and refinement of the final robots. The team's hard work and determination will undoubtedly lead to success in next year's challenge. Good luck!
