Robotic whizz-kids from a Suffolk school have been crowned national champions – for the second year running.
The DidiMinds, the robotics club at Holbrook Primary School, travelled to Princethorpe College in Rugby on March 5 for the RoboCup Junior national finals.
The team of 13 children all aged under 14 spent six months building and programming a team of robots to dance and perform to music for the onStage category of the competition.
Beating a secondary school along the way the DigiMinds won the competition, giving them a second national title in two years.
Karl Annis, aged 10 said the win made up for the long travelling time to and from the competition.
“This was the second time we have done a dance and it is great to win again,” he said. “I was so pleased to score more points from the judges.”
Eight-year-old Iduna Offord, one of four girls in the team, said: “I was a bit worried that I would be competing against children from a secondary school. Their robots looked very clever and well built.
“I guess the judges just liked our dance more. We had a lot of fun putting it together, and my robot, the snake, was really clever.
“We had to change the program on the day though because it moved too quickly over their dance floor and kept leaving the stage.”
Zara Graham said: “I went last year to the national finals where we did a dance all about Felixstowe Docks. Last year we had robots disguised as container boxes, but this year we wanted to get the robots to actually move things around.”
Felix Powell added: “I was really proud to represent my school at the RoboCup National Finals. It was fun watching the other leagues, such as the soccer league and the rescue league, but our league, the RoboDance league is the most fun.”
Members of the team will be travelling to Eindhoven in the Netherlands for the RoboCup European Open competition to show off their robots and their dance moves.
Richard Williams, who runs the school’s club, said: “I am really proud of our DigiMinds team for defending their RoboDance championship.
“They have learnt so much about robotics and programming and had a great time. They worked really hard as a team and have been wonderful ambassadors for our school.
“I hope that they can be an inspiration to others across our region.”
Competition judge Adrian Teruli said he was impressed with the team’s amusing “clever touches”, adding their programming skills were well beyond their years.
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