Caithness pupils show STEM skills in First Lego League Challenge

Primary and secondary school pupils from Caithness have been showcasing their Lego-building skills as part of a global competition.

The First Lego League Challenge North Highland Tournament was hosted and sponsored by Dounreay, Developing the Young Workforce North Highland and UHI North Highland.

It was held in the Engineering, Technology and Energy Centre (ETEC) at UHI North Highland in Thurso.

First Lego League is a worldwide competition hosted in this country by the Institute of Engineering and Technology. It introduces science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to children aged four to 16 in a fun way.

Participants gain problem-solving experience in a guided global program, inspiring them to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding and design skills through hands-on learning and robotics.

The challenge for nine to 16-year-olds is building and programming a Lego robot that navigates the missions of a robot game. The 2022/23 season theme was Superpowered.

Teams from Caithness and Sutherland had been working on their challenge for months, with support from their team coaches and STEM ambassadors from Dounreay.

At the ETEC event, each team presented its innovation project and robot design to a panel of judges. Pupils participated in three short robot games where they had to complete as many missions as possible.

The highest score of all the games won the Robot Performance Award.

During the presentation and games the judges and referees also reflected on the core values of the teams.

The winners were:

• Core Values Award – Newton Squad (Newton Park Primary School)
• Innovation Project Award – BOB (Thurso High School)
• Robot Design Award – Lego Legends (Halkirk Primary School)
• Robot Performance Award – Reay Legoteers (Reay Primary School)
• Engineering Excellence Award (judges' award) – Noss Block Stars (Noss Primary School)
• Motivate Award (judges' award) – Team Gary (Thurso High School)
• Best Team Work (judges' award) – Team Beiss (Keiss Primary School / Bower Primary School)
• Inclusion Award (judges' award) – The Dunbuilders (Dunbeath Primary School)
• Poster competition winner – The Dunbuilders (Dunbeath Primary School)
• Champions Award – Reay Legoteers (Reay Primary School)

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