Mosslands goes to MOSI!
Robotics STEM event at Manchester Museum Of Science and Industry
On Monday 13th November, a select group of Year 10 GCSE Computer Scientists travelled to Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry to attend and compete in a robotics-themed STEM event hosted by the Smallpiece Trust and supported by The Processing & Packaging Machinery Trade Association (PPMA), the Business Education Skills and Training group, the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA) group and KUKA robotics.
The day included a Mars Rover Challenge which involved students in teams of 4 working with Lego Mindstorms kits, with the aim of building their own robot and programming it to navigate a course in the fastest possible time. Our Mosslands teams managed the impressive times of 15.25, 8.25 and 7.65 seconds respectively.
During lunch, students had the opportunity to speak with professionals working in the field of robotics and watch demonstrations from the KUKA robot-arm and Nao humanoid-robot. Students were then given a tour of the museum and had the opportunity to explore our obsession with recreating ourselves in human form and what it truly means to be a human in a robotic world! The fantastic Robots Exhibition contained numerous working robots that were 500 years in the making and included, amongst others, the RoboThespian, Kodomoroid and a rather unsettling animatronic baby used in the movies.
We are proud to say that one of our teams, Team 3, consisting of Ethan Alford, Alfie Beacall, William Downes and Matthew Noyce were awarded Most Innovative Team and won miniature Robotic arms donated by KUKA robotics and gained the Challenger Industrial Cadets Certificates of achievement. All of our students had a fantastic and inspiring day and we would like to thank PPMA BEST, Manchester MOSI and all of the sponsors for running a great event!
Finally one of the winning team said “ I felt a sense of achievement… the day wasn’t just about winning… thank you as you really inspired me to work in the STEM industry”. Job done!
We’ll be back!