OHS were extremely proud and honored to be part of the Sponsors team that ensured students at Heywood Prep School tested their engineering skills at the first ever World Lego League over in Houston, Texas earlier this year.
As an insight into their incredible journey, check out the school’s full de-brief below:
The FIRST Lego League (FLL) offers pupils aged 9-16 years the chance to tackle real-world problems through robotics and engineering, overcoming challenges and creating innovative solutions in collaborative ways. This season #CARGOCONNECT delivered problems faced by the cargo and shipping industries to Heywood’s rookie competition team, The Cargonauts. Comprised of eight pupils, all aged 11 years old. Their incredible journey started long before the season’s start in September. Throughout years 4 and 5, the children had experienced dedicated STEAM lessons embedded into their curriculum at Heywood Prep. Weekly lessons dedicated to engineering, alongside their weekly computer science and twice-weekly science lessons, ensured that the pupils received a strong foundation in STEM subjects.
This is complemented by Heywood’s annual FIRST Lego League competition team, each formed from year 6 pupils who have demonstrated skills that align with FIRST’s Core Values of teamwork, inclusion, creativity, a desire to try new skills and deliver meaningful change to their community.
Throughout the Autumn term of 2021 The Cargonauts and their coaches, were all hard at work preparing for the regional competition held in Bristol in January. Heywood’s previous experiences of FLL usually ended at regional events – the team fully believed this to be the end of their season, and so were quite disheartened not to be together on the big day. Whilst their robot, The Cargonaut, did not make it to the knockout rounds, (scoring 215 points against approximately 30 teams) their delightful rendition of their engineered solution as a rap ‘Polycarbonate is the Brand New Way!’ ©The Cargonauts 2021, and their demonstration of Core Values secured them a Champion’s award, qualifying them for the Nationals!
The Nationals soon arrived and The Cargonauts assembled with their families in Harrogate, freshly dressed in team shirts sponsored by Deloitte. Incredibly excited, the children set to work greeting the other UK teams and setting up their pit. The children needed greater independence and social confidence to navigate the event – soft skills FLL excels at developing. Throughout, team members had to coordinate across several convention hall spaces, schedule their tasks with the times given and always ensure they were in the right place at the right time! As the awards were announced, the team felt very pleased for having taken part, but all were blown away when it was announced that they had managed to secure the 2nd Champions award! The pupils, families, coaches and all community members following online through the live coverage were thrilled – once more The Cargonauts had continued to impress with their strong Core Values and their delivery of their Innovation Project.
A few weeks later, the team was incredibly lucky to receive an invitation to represent the UK and IET at the FIRST World Championships held in Houston, Texas. And if organising a regional event on short notice had seemed daunting, an international endeavour felt somewhat insurmountable. We needn’t have worried however, the FLL-UK team were with us at every step, always on hand to answer questions and make connections to FIRST in the USA. We were also incredibly grateful to receive vital funding that would enable our team make the incredible voyage. It was no small financial feat, whilst FLL-UK’s grant certainly enabled the team to get a head start including covering the competition entry fees, additional sponsorship was also needed to ensure each of the eight families could send their child at as low a cost as possible, alongside three staff members, with the group as a whole gladly giving up and volunteering their Easter holidays for what could be the experience of a lifetime, proudly representing their country abroad.
So, what does it take to send eight 11-year-olds, two coaches, and one headmistress across the pond, into a four-day fiesta of robotics and engineering, to mix amongst thousands of children aged 6 to 18 across all of FIRST’s competition levels, all joined by coaches, mentors, volunteers, and public spectators? An awful lot, it turns out. Prioritisation and teamwork would be essential, once again living up to FIRST’s Core Values throughout. The flights, accommodation, food, transport, risk assessment, and acclimatisation became a full-time job for one staff member; event schedules, resources, props, pit, and presentation plans and transport were taken on by another, whilst our third staff member focused on the weakest link… the very tired EV3, which now had to compete on the international stage.
Throughout, all the stops were pulled out behind the scenes by Heywood, Wishford, and FLL-UK. Sponsors such as Network N, Mann Williams, OHS, and Qoda Consulting contributed to the financial pot to enable all children in the group to make the journey and stay rested and fed, further team shirts and caps were obtained, and additional luggage for a marquee and banners to decorate the team pit with, including bunting and UK flags – The Cargonauts would not miss the opportunity to proudly represent the UK! Mrs. Evans dipped into her STEM Ambassador role and volunteered extra days of coaching on top of her usual teaching timetable, even the Combat Wombats (UK 1st Champions and nearby school neighbours) came to spend time sharing ideas and tips between the two teams and their coaches. With final preparations by all of the families supporting the children for what would be a long journey away from home in a post-Covid world, the team was ready for the international event.
After a problem-free touchdown in Houston, two days of science-based sightseeing as culture vultures were in order, to allow the team’s sleep schedules to catch up before the team descended into the FIRST World Championships. On arrival at the George R Brown convention centre, there was no doubt that our team of intrepid engineers were surrounded by their kind – young people in brightly coloured kits, robots of all shapes and sizes ‘loading in’, team shout outs, poses, and rallies, bright and colourful pits, flags from over 40 countries and pin badges – thousands and thousands of pin badges. It turns out that pin badges are the item of choice for trades between teams, from FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Lego Leagues, young engineers between the ages of 6 and 18 were all taking the time to wish each other luck and trade ‘buttons’. Equipped with over 300 buttons and nearly 200 3D printed keyrings, The Cargonauts were quick to set up their home pit whilst trading these small keepsakes between their international peers, discussing their innovation projects, and wishing each other luck. Particular highlights from these exchanges included gummy sweets from Hawai’i, snacks from South Korea, personalised name tags from Japan, postcards sent from Switzerland, and colour changing pencils from Denmark. Attendees from all over the world were invited to leave positive messages and wishes in kind on The Cargonauts’ graffiti wall featuring a map of the world. This map changed throughout the festival to be completely covered in incredible messages from as far as Australia and was a great item to bring back with us as a token of international cooperation and positivity.
Following the ‘load in’, each of our eight pupils worked incredibly hard throughout the four-day event. Jobs were assigned – some pupils worked tirelessly on tuning ‘The Cargonaut’ robot at the practise tables, whilst others greeted attendees and shared their learning at the pit. Friday was the ultimate test of endurance; between last-minute practise and rehearsals, the team presented their innovative solutions to a panel of judges for just under an hour, handling tricky questions relating to their research and robot design, before heading to the performance arena, pushing their robot to achieve as many points as it could at the tables. In all, the team’s robot managed a personal best 350 points, which was a huge achievement considering it had only been built a few weeks before! The team were exhausted, having given that day their all. As coaches, we couldn’t have asked for more from them, and everyone was proud of how the day has gone.
Whilst there were no obvious trophies or top prizes for the team to return home with, which to those who have not attended such an event might believe are quite the point of going, there were many far smaller achievements for the eight children along the way. Woodie Flowers, a co-founder of FIRST and of the Core Values, was celebrated through 150 limited ‘buttons’, and of course, The Cargonauts (and their coaches) were recipients of such items amongst the thousands in attendance, for continually demonstrating cooperation, excellent communication and above all – FUN! The ‘Teamwork Makes the Dream Work’ dance prepared for Nationals was very well received in Houston, with the team invited to perform before the awards ceremony. Similarly, a nod to the team’s Professional Graciousness (another Core Value) saw the team awarded an additional 20 points to their winning robot round for observing match restarts when other teams did not. Teams were keen to keep in touch, with Fast Photons from Alabama continuing to keep in touch ahead of their further tournaments in the US. What might have been the best takeaway for the children, after watching the First Robotics Competition in full swing with their huge robots working in alliances to sense and throw balls, block opposing teams and hoist themselves up onto scaffolding, was the question – do we have FRC in the UK? They simply didn’t want their engineering journey to end.
On the journey home, as a whole team, we reflected on the impressions the FLL experience had left on our pupils. As an inclusive school, could we do more to bring the benefits of FLL and collaborative, real engineering and innovation to all of our pupils, and even further into the wider community? Heywood has consistently worked to push STEM delivery for all children, going further to support other schools and organisations to achieve the same, winning ISA’s Innovation in STEM for their curriculum development, surely expanding our use of FLL would further our goals to bring STEM confidence and enjoyment to all pupils?
Whilst the Cargonauts themselves assimilated back into post-FLL school life, Heywood continues to reflect on the potential impact of such an incredible experience. Whilst our team members each continue to use their developed confidence to push their future secondaries to take on FLL challenges themselves, Heywood looks forward to utilising the FLL experience for all pupils by embedding each season into the base curriculum all pupils experience. Of course, there may still be one or two competition teams, but all children could experience the initiative, and develop their tenacity and drive to solve real-world problems in creative and innovative ways within their classroom experience. And with just a little extra mentoring and guidance on offer for our group and local schools, FLL could be an experience for even more pupils. The continuing impact of Heywood’s participation in the 2021-2022 FIRST Lego League season, #CARGOCONNECT, will be an incredible way to leave a lasting ‘thank you’ to the families, staff, volunteers, and sponsors who helped The Cargonauts reach the world stage, at the 2022 FIRST World Championship.
Special thanks for making this trip a reality went out to FLL-UK, Network N, Mann Williams, OHS, Qoda Consulting, Wishford Schools, the families of The Cargonauts, Alasdair Carr and Camilla Evans, Rebecca Mitchell, and all supporting staff at Heywood Prep.
