Teen Lego champions aim to build on their success
BBCA group of teenagers who became UK champions in a Lego robotics competition are now looking to conquer the world.
Malachi, Owen, Owen, James and Harry – Year 10 students at Endon High School in Staffordshire – beat 68 other teams to win the First Lego League UK National Final in April.
Following a campaign to raise £25,000, the team, called End-Tec, will be heading to the international edition of the contest in South Korea next month.
The quintet have designed and built their own Lego robot from scratch ahead of the competition, where it will have to tackle a number of challenges.
"It's a really amazing experience - a once-in-a-lifetime thing that we'll never be able to do again," James told BBC Midlands Today.
Malachi said every team would have the same missions to complete.
"The task is to essentially do as many as possible," he added.
The pupils have used coding language from the programme Python and Owen said the robot would effectively know what it needed to do.
The team's teacher, Shaun Mitchell, said the project was not just about building some Lego before putting it on a table and hoping for the best.
"This takes hours and hours and hours of dedication to get this to where it is," he said.
Harry described it as an "absolutely incredible" opportunity, adding: "It's absolutely life-changing. There is so much you can do with engineering."
The contest will take place in the city of Jeonju-si from 3 to 5 July, with more than 50 teams from 45 countries taking part.
On the event's website, organisers described it as a celebration of science and imagination that "brings teams together in the spirit of encouragement and collaboration".
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