On Thursday 13th of March, the team of Year 5 and 6 pupils from Darite Primary Academy the Darite Marine Marvels- were crowned champions in the First Lego League Robot Performance at RNAS Culdrose for the fourth year running!

The team of 7 children competed against 24 other primary schools on the second day of the two-day competition. This years theme was "Submerged". 

The day included the children having to invent, develop and present an "Innovation Project" that would support the research of scientists studying oceanography. The team contacted scientists at NOAA in America and the Marine Biological Association (MBA) in Plymouth. After an amazing Q and A with Professor David Sims and Dr Freya Womersely 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. 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 children 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 discussed several ideas such as solar panels on tags until they settled on adapting hydroelectric turbines into miniature impellors that could 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 a science show, interactive exhibits such as electric art, rocket making and coding. The Navy personnel were only too happy to help, and the children were very impressed with the drones on display.

The second aspect of the competition was the Robot Game.  This was a coding competition - 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. The children had all shown incredible amounts of dedication, voluntarily going in for extra practice sessions at lunchtimes and after school.

The team took part in 3 rounds setting the bar high in the first round with an amazing score of 265 points. In the final round of the day, another team managed to beat this with 280 points, but the Darite Marine Marvels didn't let that put them off, working amazingly as a team to run the codes. With crowds gathering to watch their last run, you could cut the tension with a knife!  Scoring a huge total of 310 points the team from Darite Primary were very proud to win the coding phase of the competition and were awarded the trophy for the Robot Performance for the fourth time in a row!

There was very strong competition over the two days with more than 50 teams competing. The Darite Marine Marvels- were awarded the highest placed runners-up and as such, we are really proud to announce that the the team will be attending the National Finals in Harrogate for the second year in a row! We are also proud of Harrowbarrow Primary who attended the event on the Wednesday and won the Judges Award for good effort and positivity.  Thanks to the team at the MBA (www.mba.ac.uk), Cornwall Council and RNAS Culdrose for their support in making the project a great success. 

Congratulations to the Darite Marine Marvels and Darite Primary Academy.  Good luck for the National Finals.