Harton Primary Pupils represent the region in Lego League National Final

The Harton Primary Puzzlers represented the South Tyneside borough in the national final of the First Lego League competition in Harrogate last month.

They competed against 69 other teams from around the United Kingdom, with competitors ranging from 9 – 16 years old.

The Puzzlers emerged as the top ranked team from the North East of England, securing an overall position of 15 th place, based on: their innovation idea and presentation; display of core values throughout the day; and their score in the robot competition.

They were also in second place for a special judge’s award as well as being in the top 20 for their innovation project and core values.

The team is made up of four Year five pupils - Maizie, Max, Darcie and Ellis and four Year 6 pupils – Jacob, Ella, Seamus and Mia.

The theme of this year’s Lego League tournament has been ‘Superpowered’. This involved the teams identifying a problem linked to the generation, storage or transportation of energy. They were then tasked with developing a solution. Some teams chose to focus on areas such as recycling strategies or tackling food waste.

The Harton Puzzlers chose to address the issue of energy generation through the development of their innovation project - a skipping rope which was connected to a dynamo to generate electricity.

By encouraging children and adults to engage in the fun movement of skipping, the team were able to generate electricity which could be used to charge a device.

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The concept of this idea was developed with the help of Suez TeesValley, Equinor, Skipping School, engineering students from SouthTyneside College and SeaJacks.

With the help of an engineer from SeaJacks, thechildren were able to demonstrate their idea with a functional, working prototype that was used and enjoyed by other groups (children and adults) at the tournament.

They also designed and built a robot, using Lego Spike technology and competed on a table-top playing field. This involves timed challenges, where students program the LEGO robot they have built to perform tasks on a field.

The robot interacts with modules to complete energy-themed missions and earn their team points. The children took part in 3 rounds of robot games, securing their highest possible score in their first two games.

The children shared their innovation project and robot design with judges in the style of a daytime talk show to impress judges with their enthusiasm, in-depth understanding of their working prototype and the range of people they had shared and developed their idea with.

During the competition, the team were interviewed by one of the hosts of the competition, Maddie Moate (host of the CBeebies series Maddie's Do You Know?).

This is the fourth year that the Harton Primary Puzzlers have won the First Lego League regional completion under the current coaches, with teams triumphing previously in 2018, 2019 and 2021. They did not compete in the 2020 tournament due to Covid.

Lizzie Oakley, First Lego League project coordinator said: “The Harton Puzzlers blew me away at both their regional and national competition. The level of research and hard work which has gone into their project was outstanding. Not to mention their prototype!

"Not only have this group of young aspiring engineers and technicians gone and thought up an incredible idea to help the environment, the economy and something fun, but they had actually had it created! Their skipping rope energy generator was simply amazing!

"The effort which the teachers at Harton Primary had gone to make sure they could support their team highlights the difference enthusiastic and devoted teachers make to students lives.”

Harton Primary School pupils from reception to year 6 will be participating in a STEM week in June in collaboration with SAGE. The children across the key stages will have the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of renewable sources of energy as well as problem solving, collaboration and coding skills

The Puzzlers team are already looking towards next season’s theme, Masterpiece, which will focus on the Arts.

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