Today we started our STEM week in year 1.
The aim of the week is to introduce the children to the fundamentals of STEM while working together to solve fun challenges and building models using LEGO DUPLO bricks.
In year 1, we are looking at energy, where it comes from and how we use it.
Today the children explored the STEAM Park pack and discussed different sources of energy in our community. We then worked in teams to make our own wind turbine using the building card.
The Harton Primary Puzzlers visited Harrogate Convention Centre on 22nd April for the 2022-23 First Lego League UK and Ireland national tournament. The theme this year was Superpowered and was centered around finding efficient ways to generate, store and transport energy. The Puzzlers took their Skipatron 5000 working prototype along, and had queues of children and adults waiting to have a turn! They were interviewed by TV presenter, Maddie Moate, who even had a turn and came second on the leaderboard after Mrs Ratcliffe!
During the robot game, the team scored their highest score of 245! Commentators noted how efficient the team were throughout the game. Maizie was even invited to join the commentators to discuss the team’s strategy for completing the missions.
Out of the 69 teams from across the UK and Ireland, The Puzzlers emerged as the top ranked team from the North East of England, securing an overall position of 15th 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.
We are all so proud of Jacob, Ella, Seamus, Mia, Darcie, Maizie, Max and Ellis for being absolute superstars throughout the day. They were a true testament to Harton Primary School.
The Harton Primary Puzzlers attended The Word for their regional Lego League competition – going up against other schools (both primary and secondary) from South Tyneside, Teesside and Durham.
The children took part in 3 robot games, a team work task and delivered a presentation to share their innovation idea to a panel of judges.
Their project was praised by the judges as being incredible, with little to no improvement they could suggest. Our innovation project was the ‘Skipatron 5000’ – a skipping rope that generates electricity, allowing us to use the kinetic energy of the children on a school yard to charge a device, and take pressure off the National Grid. We devised and developed this product with the help of Suez TeesValley, Equinor, Skipping School and SeaJacks.
Winner of the Skips, with 44 skips.
We used our prototype – built with the help of our friend Danny, from SeaJacks – to hold a skipping competition in the pit. The person with the highest score won a bag of Skips. Children from every other team attending had a go. Even Mrs Ratcliffe joined in.
The robot games were tense, but enjoyable. The 2 robot teams worked very hard to start the robot in the correct place every time, in order to hit the mission in the correct place.
Getting ready to start
Telling Mr Forster to calm down.
Getting ready
After lunch, the children were told they were one of the top 4 teams in the robot game, and would have 2 more attempts to make it to the finals. With a score of 195, they progressed to the finals – another 3 runs to try and score the highest amount of points to win.
Some children were not impressed with the teachers’ enthusiasm.
Showing that it is not all about winning, after their last game the children (lead by Jacob) asked the judges to wait before calculating their score to walk around the table and shake the hands of the opposing team – showing incredible sportsmanship, teamwork and character. In the finals, the children repeated their high score of 195, but were just beaten with 205 points from the opposing team (the highest score of the day).
The day ended with the award ceremony – and taking into account the Core Values, the presentation and the robot game – the Harton Primary Puzzlers were awarded the Championship trophy!
They will once again proudly represent South Tyneside in the national competition in Harrogate in April.
We are incredibly proud of our Harton Primary Puzzlers team this year. They represented South Tyneside in the national First Lego League final. They were polite, hardworking and enthusiastic throughout the day despite their very early morning start! They reached the final 12 knockout stage of the robotics game and even came away with the IET Innovation Award. They received this award for their detailed, inventive project idea as well as their fantastic gameshow-style presentation, interesting robot programming and design and their phenomenal teamwork. Well done, Harton Puzzlers.
Teamwork makes the dream work
More Lego!
Our placard
Harton Primary Puzzlers
Robotic game discussion with the ref
Jacob thoroughly checking the referee’s scores
IET Innovation Award
IET Innovation Award
IET Innovation Award
IET Innovation Award
Rehearsing Let’s Get Puzzling!
Our champions after winning the regional competition.
Check out one of our robot games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xGXAS1kxM&t=16076s
This is the moment the team received their well-deserved award.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLq35r3j0hU&t=3335s
To celebrate the work the Harton Primary Puzzlers put into their First Lego League project, the local Newspaper the Shields Gazette wrote an article about them.
Read about our success at the Regional competition below.
Pupils from Years 5 and 6 at Harton Primary School won the First Lego League competition at a regional tournament held at The Word in South Shields in December 2019.
Now Caitlin Kerr, Chloe Hill, Ruby Bird and Evie Wardale, Daniel Allen, Electra Myers, Daniel Jack and Sophie Mustafa – aka the Harton Primary Puzzlers – will travel to Bristol to represent the region in the finals.
The competition will take place at the University of West England (UWE) on Saturday, February 22 with the Puzzlers going up against more than 70 teams from around the country.
This will be the second time the Year 6 students have made it this far, after successfully reaching the finals last year – but a first for Caitlin, Chloe, Ruby and Evie.
The international Lego League competition sees students research real-world problems such as food safety, recycling or energy. They then design and build a robot, using Lego Mindstorms technology, and compete on a table-top playing field.
The team took their inspiration from some of the issues facing their hometown for this year’s theme ‘city shapers’.
They designed an eco-friendly, solar-powered tram to travel down King Street and help tackle traffic congestion in the area.
The children reached out to a range of experts for advice and support, including Nexus, the solar panel company PowerRoll and South Tyneside Council.
They will now present their idea to a panel of judges at the finals, as well as completing other Lego tasks on the day.
Team coach and Year 5 teacher Lee Forster commented: “The children have worked really hard all year- giving up many of their playtimes to practise both the robot game and the presentation. It’s been great to see them so motivated and working together.”
Harton Primary headteacher, Karen Ratcliffe added: “This competition has given our pupils the opportunity to think like engineers and scientists and I am extremely proud of their achievements in winning the overall competition.”
Junior Lego League have been thinking about different buildings and architecture around South Shields. We discussed the different features of buildings and chose some buildings that we liked . We sketched out the building and discussed the structure. We then used Lego to start to build our chosen building!
In the middle of our half term, the Harton Primary Puzzlers met at Newcastle Airport – excited for their trip to Bristol for the First Lego League England and Wales Final.
Athena being x-rayed
Tea in the departure lounge
Boarding the plane
All smiles…
…for take off.
On Saturday the 22nd of February, we set off the University of West England to the competition, setting up our information board at table 50 in the pit.
After the opening ceremony, we had to quickly change into our costumes to give deliver the best and last presentation on our idea for a solar powered tram to help boost interest in South Shields town centre. After than we had to run to the Robot Game table for our first of three attempts to score as many points as possible. Lets watch:
The day was full of interesting activities, on top of the usual Core Values, Robot Design discussion and practice tables for the robot game. The teams spoke to other teams, interviewed by the IET team and, of course, had lunch.
Opening ceremony
Team photo
Interviews – some serious…
…some not so serious.
Lunch!
In the practice pits…
…between games.
With all our practices over, our last robot game was on table 1, with all the cameras on us. Below is the live stream of our last game (If time link doesn’t work, time is 4:42:20):
On the final tables we came 20th, out of 66 teams. But with teams with joint scores, we had the 13th highest score on the day! The Harton Primary Puzzlers worked their socks off, did themselves (and their teachers) proud, and had a great day!
Photo booth medal photo.
Team photo
After months of hard work, the Harton Primary Puzzlers took part in the South Tyneside First Lego League competition – with OpenZone in The Word.
This year’s task was to identify a problem in our local area and design a solution to fix it. We designed at solar powered tram that would travel from the The Word down King Street to the sea front. We thought this idea would:
We presented this idea as a new report, with Caitlin and Sophie as hosts and Ruby as the weather girl, and the rest of the Puzzlers being all the experts we spoke to – including a solar panel scientist; a tram engineer from Beamish; a PhD student from Northumbria University; a Nexus worker; and a member of the South Tyneside 365 rejuvenation scheme.
Our interviews with the public of South Shields
Our idea on poster…
…and made from Lego, which ran around that track all day.
The Puzzlers spend the day talking to other teams, finding out about their ideas, helping with robot tasks, practicing their robot challenge and just having a great time!
The excellent judges.
Setting up our area.
Getting our practices in.
Getting our practices in.
Talking to other teams.
Selecting correct program.
Cheeky smile at the table.
Core value task – what famous building are we making?
Core value task – what famous building are we making?
Well deserved lunch.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
They also had to compete in a robot game; a 2 and half minute challenge to complete as many tasks as possible to score the most points, with 4 highest scoring teams got into the Semi-finals.
The Puzzlers came 3rd in the knock-outs with 215 points. When competing in the Semi finals, they scored 225 – securing their spot in 2nd to progress to the finals. Competing against Oakwood, who were unbelievably talented at the robot game. They set a heavy lead with 300 points in their first of 3 rounds – securing their trophy in the robot game – but the Puzzlers fought in every round, scoring their highest score of the day of 245 points.
Winning the Robot Design Award…
…Athena (on the right), known at the competition as ‘The Beast’
And winning the Champion Award.
Some tears of joy.
We are the champions….
…and we’re off to Bristol!
The trophy ceremony gave the Puzzlers 2 reasons to celebrate! Their robot – Athena, God of Technology – won ‘Best Robot Design’, after being referred to as ‘a beast’ by the judges. After coming 2nd in both the presentation and robot game, and 1st in the robot desgin, the Puzzlers won the overall day – for a 2nd year running – and now have to compete in Bristol in the national competition!
Check out what the Harton Primary Puzzlers have been doing this week for the Lego League, written by Daniel and Daniel.
https://hartonprimarypuzzlers.weebly.com/home/getting-ready-for-trips-and-experts
The Puzzlers are raising money for their trip to the national Lego League competition. They have designed 8 different badges and are planning on selling them for 50p each, to go towards the flights and hotel for the event.
So the children have started cutting and pressing their badges on a lunchtime. Only about 500 left to go!
