Scottish Robotic Games - Edinburgh children put their 'sports

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Youngsters from Edinburgh got a real-life taste of Robot Wars today as children from across Scotland gathered at aerospace giant Leonardo’s Scottish Robotic Games.

The company provides free robot making kits to students and guides them through the construction and operation of a powerful sporting robot that would make Craig Charles proud.

The assembled robots are then put to the test in a range of challenges including a robot assault course and two-a-side football.

Star guest at the games was Dr Sethu Vijayakumar, BBC Robot Wars judge and a professor of robotics at Edinburgh University.

Robots face off against each other in a series of challenges

The initiative hopes to inspire Scotland’s young people to consider future STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) careers.

By beginning with the basic mechanics of engineering, students soon learn how STEM can be brought to life.

Over the course of the event, participants soon gather the behaviours and skills which will be sought in the future generation of engineers.

It helps build the skills of the next generation of engineers

While industry has often used robots to complete mundane, repetitive activities for bulk manufacturing challenges, there was nothing mundane about the flamboyant robots competing in the Robot Wars-esque games.

For example, students from West Linton’s “Socialize” team entered two robots into the games, named Tesla and Edison.

Their innovative robot designs, which featured plasma balls, paid tribute to the story of the famous rivalry between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison.

Dr Vijayakumar said: “I think it is very important to get the young kids interested when their minds are very flexible, because if they start to get used to very simple things like driving a motor with a programme, or putting something together mechanically, then when they see a very complex looking robot they’re not so scared anymore. Small experiences like this can build up and potentially lead to a career building much more complicated things.

“This is an example of how you can do things in a very playful, social way, but at the same time do a lot of learning with hands-on experience.”