When we arrived at Clifton Campus, we made our way to reception. Once there, we were given badges which showed that we were visitors to the school. We then divided ourselves into our four teams: Key Stage two, three and four robot racing groups. I was in the Key Stage two team called “The Four Musketeers and It”; our team consisted of, Tristan Ellis, Sanat Kulkarni, Campbell Minogue and William Sanderson (“It”) and obviously myself. Mr. Jones and Mr. Gray had accompanied us.

 

After William Sanderson dropped his robot racer out of the competition it was now up to Campbell and I’s robot. When it came to our teams turn, we were ready…

I estimate that there were about fifteen people gathered around the table as we prepared to begin. Throughout the course, we were faced with numerous tasks and obstacles; firstly, we had to use a string to drop a two-pence coin on the no-time delay area (there were also ten and twenty second time delays); then we used our catapult to fire a ping pong ball over a “mini rugby post” and finally we had to use our robot’s reverse switch to get all the way back to the finish line. After two failed attempts the B-team came on an ran their robot racer as they were trying to give us time to prepare. They had amassed a score of 44 (the lower the total the better) when we ran ours. We had gained a ten second time delay as the coin was only a centimetre over the black line and unfortunately, our ping pong ball didn’t go over the post which left the  reverse switch as our last hope: it worked ! however this was not enough as our score was 55.

We then watched the Key Stage Three and Four robots.

 

After lunch we began to watch the prize giving and presentation. Out of the two teams that had entered in the Key Stage Two event, we had come second. The presentation was very interesting as we saw incredibly complicated robots. One of them looked as if it was of the television show “Robot Wars”. Another robot was programmed to follow a maze using light sensors. My favourite one was the robot that looked like a tank.

 

Soon we left Trent University felling happy that we came first and second. Overall, this day has been excellent.     

 

 

On the 27^th June 2008 we went down to the Nottingham Trent University. We all went knowing that we needed to do a lot of work in order to even participate in the competition. There were three age groups involved and they were the key stage 2 teams, the key stage 3 teams and the 4 teams.

 

Over a three week period of time we had to build a buggy that would be able to do the following. First it was supposed to travel down a course, then it was supposed to drop a two pence coin in a certain area and failing to do this would cause penalty times, thirdly it was supposed to shoot a table tennis ball 50cm through some posts off the ground, lastly the buggy would hit a wall and have to be able to come back to the starting point. This is all very complicated but as well the competition was based on how quickly you could complete the course.

 

We took eight boys down to the university and they were Michael Allen, Tobias Stables, Campbell Minogue, Tristan Ellis, William Sanderson, Max Bowling, Sanjay Puri and Sanat Kulkarni. After this experience I am thoroughly looking forward to the senior school competitions.