On Wednesday 21st January the Year 6 Lego Robotics team, named Loretanics arrived in London.  The team consisted of ten pupils, eight of whom travelled to the UK.

A statement continued: “After settling into our accommodation near Canary Wharf, we headed off for a surprise.  Arriving at the O2 Arena the team arrived at Activate, an interactive light game experience where the pupils competed individually as a team to complete challenges.  The pupils had an amazing time, thoroughly enjoying every minute of their very active experience. The team were given a backpack of goodies when they departed, and team would like to thank Activate for donating the experience and merchandise.

“Thursday was an action-packed day which followed a lovely breakfast.  Travelling under London on the Tube we visited the Westfield Shopping Centre, shop until you drop with the Pop Mart store the favourite!  We then headed to The Minecraft AR experience.  Here the pupils were immersed in the Minecraft games where the aim was to ‘save the village’.

"They were given a light cube which activated their motion during the game to chop down trees and complete challenges.  The team thoroughly enjoyed this gaming experience.  We ate our evening meal at the accommodation then taking the Tube to Covent Garden, experiencing some of the local ambiance. A walk to the West End where we arrived at the Lyceum Theatre to watch The Lion King.  All we can say is that it was amazing!

“The Robotics competition was held on Friday 23rd January in Stevenage.  With 12 teams competing at this venue, the youngest team was Loretanics with most other teams being mixed age clubs or Secondary level.  After the opening ceremony the team left for their Robot Design and Innovation project to be judged.  After 25 minutes in front of a panel of four judges they emerged with smiles, giving team high-fives. Their faces were beaming knowing they had done their best to present and answer questions.

“The team was able to move to a Robotics table where a Judge went through a practice session on how the Robot games work.  It was then time to wait for their three, three-minute judged robot games also completing their team build project.  During the three judged robot games they ran challenges that worked well or required the code to be tweaked.  During game 1 they were awarded 85 points¸ during game 2 they achieved 65 points, and game 3 awarded 85 points.  The team bonding, supporting each other no matter what the outcome was a credit to all.

“The afternoon session saw a second build assignment, which was again judged.  Based on the theme of what artifact would be dug up in 4026 to show what life was like today, the team created a mini computer.

 “In the closing ceremony the team were unsuccessful in winning a category, however they held their heads up high being presented with their Lego medals.  After the train back to London the team visited The Hard Rock Café where we had our end of trip team meal. 

“It was another successful trip, the next phase is to rest and then the team will launch Lego Robotics to the Year 5 pupils, teaching them how to code in the Spike software and complete robot game missions.

 “A huge thank you to Mr Devincenzi-Clemens for his time in teaching the pupils and facilitating the trip.”