A talented group of children from Pelton Community Primary school have secured a place in the world robotics championships held in Dallas, Texas this May.
The ‘Pelton Piranhas’ team, made up of seven year 5 & 6 members, placed second in the National Championships at the start of March this year that earned them their place in the worlds.
Tasked with building a clawbot to play the game ‘Slapshot’ the group worked after school to practice advanced coding, bot driving and overall team management.
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Now, the team are fundraising for their trip to Dallas to be the first County Durham school to ever compete in the VEX IQ World Championships.
Headmistress of Pelton Community Primary, Karen Telfer, has said she is “extremely proud” of the staff and children.
She said: “If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be going to Dallas. I think it’s just incredible that they’ve been to a local competition then got through to the national finals, and now here we are going to Dallas.
“There’s going to be 800 schools there from around the world, they will be meeting people from Hawaii, Thailand, all over the world.”
The current Pelton team was formed in September 2022, after 2021’s team missed out on their chances at last years nationals due to scheduling.
Mason, aged 10, explained: “We ended up coming second place in the skills challenge for the local leagues that brought us into the national league.
“In nationals, we came second place in the finals but fourth in total, that brought us to Dallas.”
Pelton’s team will be one of 800 in Dallas this May, playing alongside teams from the likes of Australia, China, Egypt and Japan.
The whole team admitted they feel the experience is “rewarding” and Lola, aged 10, said she is most looking forward to “meeting new people” in Dallas.
Thomas, aged 9 said: “I like taking things apart to see what it does, and I like robots and technology.”
Thomas added that because of the Pelton Piranhas, he wants to grow up and work in a STEM career.
Leila, aged 11, explained the various roles all members of the team have.
“Me, Lola and Mason are the three coders, Lennon and Harvey are the two drivers, then Egley and Thomas are the timetable managers.”
Working as a team, the aim of the Slapshot game is to use robots to move orange counters over a threshold, bringing together the younger’s coding, teamwork, and communicative skills.
In charge of the award-winning team are Miss Smith and Miss Laws, computer lead and DT lead at the school.
The pair both volunteer their time and skills for the Pelton Piranhas outside of the classroom and hope the robotics team will inspire a Dallas Legacy for the team going forward.
Miss Smith explained to the Echo the process behind the coding: “We have to come up with our own code for the robots to dispense the orange disks, then download that onto the brain of the robot.
“You get a minute to see how many discs you can get out through your coding alone.”
Fellow co-runner of the team, Miss Laws, emphasised the importance of STEM in education, particularly for young people.
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Miss Laws said: “STEM gives them an all-round basis of learning in science, technology, engineering and maths, and opens things up for them when they go into secondary school.
“It’s nice to give all children a chance to do something they enjoy.
“Hopefully when we’re gone, we can enthuse the community and bring robotics to the lower year groups.”
Pelton Primary’s team will head to Dallas at the end of April for the competition and are fundraising for the trip here.
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