The day of the UK and Ireland First Lego League Finals arrived on Saturday 16th February 2019 at the University of the West of England (UWE) at Bristol. It was a fantastic day.
Many of Team Agile Supernova stayed the night before at hotels or with friends and a few of us drove down in cars in the morning. Fareham to Bristol is a two-hour journey but after finding out that many teams had come from Scotland, North of England and Ireland, we had a relatively short trip.
Breakfast in a local hotel was busy. Expecting to come down to a quiet breakfast there was a queue of at least thirty for the self-service food in the restaurant. It looked like everyone had converged onto Bristol for the FLL finals.
Then onto the arena venue part of the UWE for the Tournament. We arrived to join a small queue to register for the day and given information packs.
It was a great day and the following blog by Haiden typifies the excitement and exuberance of the day.
FLL UK and Ireland Final 2019 – By Haiden White, 13 years old (Team member of Agile Supernova)
“The Final was – in a word – awesome. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was busy, lively and fun all around. It was great to see people getting trophies and moving on to the next stage. Even though my team didn’t win, I loved watching the surprise, shock and joy on the winners’ face, it really made my day.
The judges, volunteers and referees were so involved, they walked around, talking to the teams and looking at their work. I really loved how up close and personal the presenters and host were, they weren’t afraid to talk to us, and I felt that I shouldn’t be afraid to talk to them either.
The introduction and awards ceremony were so lively and funny, and really involved the team members and the spectators. I loved just walking into the building, with the space-like corridor they built and, of course, the free Lego® (that surprised me). There was so much to do during the day, the project, the core values and the missions (the whole context of the competition), but even in your down time there was so much to do: there were building stations, practise areas for the robot missions and interactive stalls with remote control robots, games and even more free Lego® (those little Maxo things were adorable!). There was even a big screen where you can watch the live stream of the day, the score board and see posts and tweets using #ReadySetSpace. I laughed so much when I saw someone posted “I just want to be on the board. #ReadySetSpace”.
All in all, I had a great day and I will remember it forever.”
Well, AgileSupernova did not bring any trophies home from the First Lego League UK and Ireland Finals at Bristol, but we returned with something so much more important…a group of young people with an incredible future ahead of them. I could not be prouder of them. Solving problems, giving presentations and working as a team boosted their confidence to achieve what seemed impossible to start with. They worked at it and got to the Finals – an achievement in itself.
There are three parts of FLL – the Robot Missions, the Project and Teamwork. The team worked hard from mid-September 2018 designing and building the Robot then programming and running the Robot Missions to achieve as many points as possible. At the Finals we came 18th out of 60 teams in the Missions – a brilliant result. This year’s FLL challenge was INTO ORBIT all about space – the project was how humans survive for extended periods in this environment. AgileSupernova chose to research a sustainable food solution by breeding live cockroaches and crickets in space. Finally the team worked well together to achieve the tasks that is not easy when the team came from four different schools and did not know each other at the start.
There are many people that I would like to thank. Agile ICT for sponsoring the team and for their support and Ridgeway Exotics of Lee-on-the-Solent for supplying the live insects and containers. Also, Peter Milner, a member of Hampshire Astronomical Group, for his guidance in researching the project.
Here’s a selection of photos showing the excitement and activities.
