{"id":74626,"date":"2026-07-02T01:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74626\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T01:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:06:16","slug":"island-students-test-robots-in-tournament-at-bae-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74626\/","title":{"rendered":"Island students test robots in tournament at BAE Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Isle of Wight students have put their robotics skills to the test in a regional tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The FIRST Tech Challenge was held at BAE Systems in Cowes, and teams of students from seven Isle of Wight schools took part in the competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The event was the culmination of a 20-week programme in which students designed, built and programmed robots to compete in a series of engineering challenges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Taking part were St Catherine\u2019s School, Medina College, Carisbrooke College, The Lionheart School, The Island Free School, Christ the King College, and St George\u2019s School.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Organisers described an impressive level of professionalism and innovation throughout the tournament, with students aged 12 to 18 demonstrating technical ability and teamwork under pressure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.countypress.co.uk\/news\/26233815.bay-ce-school-year-11-students-celebrate-end-gcses-prom\/?ref=ial\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:The Bay CE School Year 11 students celebrate end of GCSEs with prom;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;The Bay CE School Year 11 students celebrate end of GCSEs with prom&quot;}\" class=\"link \">The Bay CE School Year 11 students celebrate end of GCSEs with prom<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A teacher from St Catherine\u2019s School said the event had been \u201cprobably the highlight of my teaching career,&#8221; adding: &#8220;The kids had such a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A combined team from St Catherine\u2019s School and Carisbrooke College took top honours, while Medina College and The Lionheart School were named tournament finalists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Medina College also received the Inspire Award, the competition\u2019s highest accolade, recognising excellence in robot design, performance, teamwork, and community outreach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Councillor Ros Freeman, chair of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.countypress.co.uk\/topics\/isle-of-wight-council\/?ref=au\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Isle of Wight Council;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Isle of Wight Council&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Isle of Wight Council<\/a>\u2019s children\u2019s services, education and skills committee, said: &#8220;Congratulations to all the schools who took part in the first-ever Tech Challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The enthusiasm, talent, and dedication shown by every team have been truly inspiring, with far too many achievements to mention individually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Special congratulations to those who earned the top honours \u2013 a fantastic accomplishment and a testament to your hard work and innovation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;A sincere thank you to BAE Systems for hosting and supporting this challenge, providing such a valuable opportunity for young people to develop their skills, confidence and passion for technology and engineering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.countypress.co.uk\/news\/26226689.young-isle-wight-brothers-win-regional-awards-national-engineering-contest\/?ref=ial\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Young Isle of Wight brothers win regional awards at national engineering contest;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Young Isle of Wight brothers win regional awards at national engineering contest&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Young Isle of Wight brothers win regional awards at national engineering contest<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Well done to everyone involved \u2013 students, teachers, mentors, organisers and supporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;You have all played a part in marking this inaugural event a great success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The tournament was supported by industry mentors from organisations including BAE Systems, GKN, Gurit and Yokogawa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Isle of Wight Council and the Solent Careers Hub also supported the event as part of ongoing efforts to expand STEM opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isle of Wight students have put their robotics skills to the test in a regional tournament. The FIRST&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21224],"tags":[21234,8160,33872,33873,33874,7776,33875,33870,33877,33871,428,33876],"class_list":["post-74626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bae","tag-bae","tag-bae-systems","tag-carisbrooke-college","tag-christ-the-king-college","tag-island-free-school","tag-isle-of-wight","tag-isle-of-wight-council","tag-medina-college","tag-regional-tournament","tag-st-catherines-school","tag-students","tag-the-lionheart-school"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116847705212888163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}