Nationals Competition

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Nationals - Robot Design 1st Place!

Yesterday, on the 22/2/2020, Black Thunder went to compete in the National Championship for England and Wales, at the University of the West of England. When the 9 of us, along with 4 mentors and coaches, arrived, we unloaded our minibus and headed to the pits. We then attended the opening ceremony and a member of our team proudly carried out banner proclaiming us to be the Champions of the North London Regional. The first event in our timetable was our first Robot Game at 10'o'clock and though we went in with high hopes, we only scored 120 points. This was disappointing, but we still had more events to compete for and had more opportunities to improve our robot score. 

Next, we had our Innovation Project, which was the Parking Bot app (available on the Google Play Store). Our presentation went quite well and we received some feedback that would come in very useful for internationals. Following that, we had our second robot game, in which we managed to double the score of our runs to 240 points! Though this was not what we were aiming for, we were still encouraged by this change in score. Just before our lunch break, we had Robot Design, and it went extremely well. The judges were immensely impressed with our well thought-out structure and attachment efficiency, and were quite very impressed with our MicroPython code. What really left a mark though, were our documents. The Pseudocode, Robot Design Executive Summary and early stages documents left the judges amazed and they told us that they would show our documents to the other judges when deciding the results. We left extremely confident and enjoyed our lunch break, finishing it with a practice session at one of tables. 

Next was Core Values, for which we used the banners we had designed; and our teamwork task was to make the tallest structure we could out of paper. As soon as we began, we allocated roles to enable more efficient team work, such as time keeper, leader, etc. One member of our team had an excellent idea: to fold the paper into triangular prisms and stack them horizontally. We made an excellent structure and also were asked questions about our club and values. From that, we also received some important feedback, which we have taken on board and are working on improving on. Finally, we had our last event of the day: Robot Game 3. Unfortunately, we weren't able to improve our score, only gaining 215 points. Though this was disheartening, we kept faith and took a break to visit the amazing RS Truck - which is filled with interesting technology and even a VR game. 

After that, the knock out games began and we watched as the top 12 teams battled out to win the Robot Game Award. Once the finals had finished, we all sat down for the awards presentation. And when our name was called out for first place in Robot Design, our team exploded with ecstasy. We strode onto the stage, very proud of what we had achieved. We were all so amazed that we had won the best Robot Design; when we walked off of the stage, we were met by an official who told us we would be going to Internationals. After some hasty congratulations and a short team celebration at the UWE, we packed our bags and left for home.



Overall, we had a splendid day and are thrilled to be going to internationals (though we are not sure where, yet) for the first time in Black Thunder history. Though we have been successful, we still have a lot to work on in all areas and there is a lot of space for improvement if we want to be International Champions.  


Read More:
Robot Game
Robot Design and Project
Core Values



Location: Filton Rd, Frenchay, UWE, Bristol BS16 1ZG, UK

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