Robot ready’ at St Joseph’s

It was time for action, when our robotics engineers showcased their talents at a regional competition.

The pupils from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary in Benwell were competing in the Vex IQ Robotics Competition North-East Regional at Sasmi College in Sunderland, where the robot they had created was put through its paces.

“The event is part of an international competition run by Vex Robotics, with a variety of age categories, and the UK North-East division is supported by Nissan and the Reece Foundation,” explained Ms Bennaceur, who is Joint IT Lead with Mrs Noble at our school.

“We had a grant from the Reece Foundation to buy the appropriate Vex IQ robotics kit, and then we had to build and code a robot to take part in the competition.

“The robot had to be able to pick up plastic pegs and place them in the goals. We followed the robot design provided and then modified the design by adding an extra motor to make the lifting mechanism more powerful.

“The robot had to be built by the students and needed to be able to score points by picking up plastic pegs, stacking them into towers, and then placing them in the goals. The robot remote control also had to be coded by the students to allow them to drive the robot.”

It was the second time we had participated in the annual contest.

“Within the Robotics Club, there were 16 members from Year 5 and 4, and four mentor members from Year 6 (who participated in the competition last year),” continued Ms Bennaceur, who runs the Club with Mrs Noble. 

“Only nine students in Year 5, who chose the roles of builders, engineers, coders, and drivers, were taken to the competition.

“The other students had decided to take on the role of note-bookers and learnt to use Canva to create a presentation documenting our progress to show all the classes in our school as part of Science Week.”

“I liked building the robot and controlling it,” said a Year 5 student, while a teammate said: “The competition was the best bit – it was really exciting.”

“I liked building the stacks with the robot at the competition,” agreed fellow Year 5 pupil.

“Competitions like this give students a variety of opportunities to show their talents outside of academics,” added Ms Bennaceur.

“Hopefully this competition gave them a passion for robotics and computing that may one day inform their career choices.”

Proudly a member of the Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust.