Queen Mary’s Battle of Lego robots to find solution to world’s ‘trash’ problems

Young whizzkids from London and the South East competed with Lego robots to find smart ways to solve the world’s ‘trash’ problems.

Seven teams from schools in east London, west London, Surrey and Suffolk competed in a First Lego League tournament staged at Queen Mary University’s Mile End campus.

The 90 Year 7 and Year 8 pupils taking part with their teachers and parents had to come up with solutions to real world waste issues.

They battled it out for trophies building and programming Lego robots to complete their recycling missions.

It involved thinking out problems in waste management and designing solutions. Their ideas included bins for electro-chemical batteries or mobile electronics, used toy exchange shops in schools and boxes for “date expired” food that’s still edible to reduce food waste.

The young inventors presented their project ideas and robot designs to a panel of Queen Mary academics from the university’s School of Electronic Engineering & Computer Science, then set their Lego robots to complete the tasks such as sorting items for recycling, composting and clearing plastic bags.

Queen Mary’s Kok Ho Huen said: “There was energy and dedication with everybody competing fairly—in some cases even helping each other.”

Trophies awarded included the Robot Games highest score which went to St Paul’s Way secondary at Bow Common, in London’s End End, with their top-scoring Lego robot.

Other schools taking part were Golfe’s in Greenwich, Sutton Grammar, Greenford High and Woodbridge in Suffolk.