FOR the fourth consecutive year, the Darite Marine Marvels cemented their legacy as champions, claiming victory in the First Lego League Robot Performance at RNAS Culdrose.
Competing over two days against 48 other primary schools from across Cornwall, the seven young innovators from Darite Primary Academy showcased exceptional skill, teamwork and creativity to emerge victorious once more.
This year’s competition theme, ‘Submerged,’ challenged teams to invent, develop and present an innovation project that would support the research of scientists studying oceanography.
The team, made up of Year 5 and 6 pupils, contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in America, as well as the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth to help with their grand plans.
Following a Q&A session with Professor David Sims and Dr Freya Womersley at the MBA, during which they learned about the cutting-edge research being done in Plymouth, the team decided to look at ways they could support the MBA team with extending battery life in the tags.
This is one of the many challenges facing Professor Sims and his team as they explained – and the MBA team are using tags to track shark species, including whale sharks, the data from which, support research in climate change and human impact on the oceans.
The Darite Marine Marvels chose to look at how batteries in the tags could be recharged, extending the life of the tag, gathering more data and allow scientists to make tags smaller to track juvenile sharks.
The team went through several ideas, such as solar panels on tags, until they settled on adapting hydroelectric turbines into miniature impellors that can be attached to tags. The judges on the day were very impressed with their ideas and display of teamwork.
Along with this aspect of the competition, there was also a science show, interactive exhibits such as electric art, rocket making and coding.
The second aspect of the competition was the “Robot Game” – a coding competition in which the participants had to build and code a robot from a set number of Lego pieces to move around a mat, interacting with Lego obstacles and scoring points.
Three teams heading to the national finals are:
- BB Lego League Girls from Bishop Bronescombe were the Day 1 champions, and winners of the robot performance award with a score of 260.
- Jelly Friends from Penpol were Day 2 champions, ranking first in core values, innovation project, robot design and second in robot performance (290).
- Darite Marine Marvels were the best performing runner-up, coming second overall on Day 2 and winning the robot performance award with the highest robot performance score over the two days (310).
Commander Richie Turrell, RNAS Culdrose’s executive officer and second-in-command, said: “We’ve been really privileged to host and welcome 460 children from schools across Cornwall here to Culdrose for the First Lego League. One of the core principles of the Royal Navy is teamwork. That ethos is evident here, not just in the organisation, but also in the hard work by the children themselves to compete and take part.”