Robots from across the Liverpool City Region will compete for the Robot Challenge title!
The Employment and Skills Board of the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership has teamed up with MerseySTEM to launch its first Robot Challenge Days to promote engineering and technology among young people.
More than 50 schools from across the Liverpool City Region (covering the local authority areas of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral) will compete in the tournament. Each Robot Challenge will see teams of students take part in a full day event starting with building their robots with the support of manufacturing employers in the region. The robots will then compete in a series of challenges against other team’s robots. The winners and runners-up from each heat will go forward to the final.
The first heat, sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover, took place on Monday 25 November, 2013 at All Saints Catholic High School, Knowsley where the winning team was from Halewood Centre for Learning, with a team from St Edmund Arrowsmith declared runners up.
Richard Else, Operations Director at Jaguar Land Rover and Chair of Employment and Skills Board said: “To remain competitive we need to ensure we invest in our future workforce. By helping young people engage with the possibilities of technology we’re hoping to spark interest in subjects such as science, maths and engineering and encourage young people that Advanced Manufacturing is an exciting and rewarding career choice.”
Richard added: “We are pleased to support Robot Challenge Days which complements Jaguar Land Rover’s award-winning ‘Inspiring Tomorrow’s Engineers’ national school education programme.”
The final will be held at World Museum Liverpool and form part of the International Festival for Business event taking place in June and July 2014. The festival will focus on key areas of commerce that are transforming the business landscape of Britain and beyond including manufacturing, science and technology; maritime, logistics and energy; knowledge professional and financial services; higher and further education and research; low carbon and renewables; cities, enterprise and urban business; knowledge, creative and digital.
This project has been supported by the Skills Show via the Skills Funding Agency and the European Social Fund.