Hello everyone! We are three Wilsonians (Burak, Evan and Ali) in Year 9 who have competed in an FLL (First Lego League) robotics competition for 9-16-year-olds, as part of a team called Exploding Ketchup, along with three other team members from another school.

In this competition, teams create an autonomous, programmed robot that completes missions on a board. These involve pushing objects, delivering LEGO figurines to specific areas and much more, all under timed conditions. Furthermore, teams have to think of an innovative solution to identify and solve real world problems based on this year's theme: art.

In January, our team participated in this competition at the regional level, competing against ten other teams. We won this competition and thus proceeded to the nationals in Harrogate.

Last week, after over half a year of programming and refining our robot as well as developing our innovative idea, we participated in the long-awaited nationals in Harrogate. We competed against 74 other teams from all over the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, including the reigning champions from last year. We won against all these teams making us the best of 1700 teams in the nation! This means that we now have the opportunity to represent the UK in the Open European Championship in May at Bodo, Norway!

Our team are very excited to try to make our schools and our country proud, and cannot wait to interact with other teams from other countries.

Burak, Evan and Ali (Year 9)