UK Remote Event 1: The results are in!

The first set of UK teams hit the Ultimate Goal game field last week, marking the first week of our UK remote competition season. Fired and ready to perform, 12 teams battled the 2 min. 30 sec. clock to wrack up as many points as possible and present to a panel of industry judges hoping to win a coveted FIRST award.

This season’s Ultimate Goal game challenges teams to fire rings into a set of targets and to strategically move objects into position across the game field. For more info on the game objective, rules and point scoring, watch the game walkthrough. Huge applause to all teams who competed against all odds this season and congratulations to all awarded teams.

Here are the results!

Team scores and rank

Table key

Team Awards

Control Award
UK235, 19279, Don’t Feed the Robot, American School in London

While selecting a team for Control Award we were looking for a team who have made innovative and/or intelligent use of software and sensors.

The winning team was chosen for their smart use of sensors and Vuforia algorithm to determine the position of the robot within arena. In addition, they have used cropping of webcam input to optimise the search space. The team has used heuristics to improve on the ring detection by the robot.

Collins Aerospace Innovate Award
UK247, 19282, The Big Mac, American School in London

For this award, we as judges were looking for creative and elegant design of the components of the robot.

The winning team was chosen for their innovations across multiple subcomponents, such as the use of bands to provide lifting traction to the rings and designing a wheel to hold the bands in place. In addition, the whole loading mechanism is driven with the single motor with sprockets. They also made use of cardboard as a ramp to facilitate the launch of the rings. And finally they 3D printed certain custom parts using CAD.

Judges Award
UK184, 19280, American School in London

There were a lot of contenders for this particular award, with the judges struggling to choose just one deserving team. The winning team displayed perseverance and creativity when faced with problems to solve, as well as showcasing an excellent iterative approach to their robot design. Their most remarkable quality, however, was building the robot from scratch within an extremely limited time frame under pandemic-related conditions.

Design Award
UK133, 18717, The Fast and the Flurries, Lakenheath HS

The Design Award was a hard award to give out, as the robot needs to demonstrate not only decent function, but needs to look good while doing it.

The winning team was chosen because they demonstrated an ability to identify, assess and resolve their design principles. They had a unique idea for building the arm of their robot as well as a “sleek” design that protected the robot’s various components. Their portfolio showed how their design evolved and was improved with good documentation.

Motivate Award
UK003, 19278, Binary Bots, Binary Bots

The Motivate Award goes to a team that shows an “Ambassador-like mentality” spreading the message of what FIRST Tech Challenge UK is all about.

The winning team was chosen because they made great attempts (even during a pandemic!) to collaborate with other teams – they shared their knowledge and helped other teams tackle unique robotic issues, despite the fact that they’re competing against them! This team also recruited new members into their team and helped volunteer their time, effort and passion to support other teams SELFLESSLY!

Connect Award
UK101, 19275, The Frenchineers, Lycee International de Valbonne

Of all the categories awarded, this was the most difficult category to judge considering the debilitating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. The winning team displayed a strong sense of inclusivity with team members from different backgrounds and reached out to industry professionals for guidance. They had a great portfolio detailing their strategy, sustainability and outreach programmes.

Think Award
UK148, 19277, F.R.I.T.E.S, Lycee International de Valbonne

The winning team was chosen because they demonstrated a clear and concise design process. This team ‘hacked’ the design for their robot together and managed to implement a better feed belt design into their robot. In addition, they also had a really good sustainability and strategy plan presented in their engineering portfolio.

Inspire Award
UK170, 15469, Dragon Robotics, Alconbury HS

With most teams displaying impressive bots, there was more than one contender for this category. The winning team came up with innovative ideas, showed a meticulous plan of execution, good demonstrations and conducted community outreach programmes. When asked about their biggest challenge this season, they said that they wanted to take their legacy forward by conducting recruitment and knowledge transfer to junior team members.

. . .

And there we have it! Well done to all teams and a special thanks to our phenomenal judges from our generous partner Arm who dedicated their time to ensure every team receives the recognition they deserve.

We’ll be back at the end of the month with the results for teams in remote events 2 and 3. Follow the hashtag #MoreThanRobotsUK on Instagram and Twitter for team updates.