Robots do battle at Telford championships – with video and pictures

They created amazing machines for the growing VEX Robotics and VEX IQ Challenge in a bid to compete in the United States world finals.

Pupils have been taking part in robot challenges with the overall winners booking their place at the Vex Robotics World Championships due to be held, in Louisville, Kentucky, next month.

Each team took attended a series of regional heats before making it to this year’s national finals in a bid to impress the judging panel of experts including representatives from BAE Systems, Nissan, Autodesk, RAF and Lockheed Martin.

Watch some of the robots in action:

This year’s show included Shropshire’s lone representative St John Talbot’s School, in Whitchurch, which was due to compete in the IQ Challenge.

Also competing in the event which is similar to TV’s Robot Wars were several secondary schools from Barnet, in London.

Among them were the Friern Barnet School, whose Lone Biter team included Antony Borissevitch, Berat Dogan, both 16, Tyler Pereira, Nitzan Lugassy and Leonard Rexha, all 15.

Antony said: “We have been competing for over a year now. When the team started there was just three of us and since then it’s grown. we had a slow start here at the nationals, but we’re picking up and have won two out of five challenges so far.

“We’re aiming to win our section as we want to make it to Kentucky.”

Gabriella Moscona, 14, of girl school Henrietta Barnett, said: “We’ve had a pretty good day so far. We’ve won all three of our matches and we are second on the leader board.

“We had a hitch during one match, but we supported each other and it was OK in the end. We are one of the strongest IQ teams.

“Robotics is very popular where we live, we compete against the other north London teams regularly. We knew them them and what standard to expect before we got here.

“We have amazing teachers we have done everything to help us. It’s thanks to them that we’re here.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School also in Barnet fielded 16 pupils in several teams and was a heat winner in the Autonomous challenge which saw the machines pre-programmed with a set game. Last year three team members competed at the world finals.

Team spokesman Lucas Lu, 15, said: “It’s going very well. We were successful in Autonomous and we hit all the boards to win 22-13 overall our opponents.

“We meet every lunchtime, after school once a week and during all the school holidays we meet at each other’s homes as we get on really well.”

VEX Robotics spokesman Andrew Ryan said: “It’s gone very well in Telford. It is our biggest UK event to date with more teams taking part than ever before. It’s wonderful to see.”