Battle for KMF's robot rivalry trophy

Young Engineers from schools across Staffordshire and Cheshire went head to head this week in a Robot Rivalry battle organised by sheet metal fabrication and precision engineering company KMF.

Robot Rivalry, a STEM competition that has challenged students to design, build and battle real-life robotics, has been running in schools since November last year and concluded with a final battle hosted at Newcastle College's Performing Arts Centre.

The 16 participating High Schools took part in three robot battles throughout the day, as well as undertaking a core values activity and presenting a research project which asked 'What can robots do for us in the Future'.

A total of nine awards were handed out on the day. Categories included Best Design, Robot Game and Spirit of Young Engineer. However, the overall KMF Young Engineer of the Year (YEOTY) award was awarded to Endon High School with their robot Erazor.

Isabella Galley aged 15, team captain of Erazor, commented: "I cannot believe we have been crowned as the winners, we were not expecting it at all. Our robot had several hard battles and didn't perform as well as we'd hoped. However, we did really well in both the core values and project challenges, and so it must have been these that persuaded judges."

"The whole YEOTY project has been amazing. I have gained a huge amount of engineering and metalwork experience, made great friends with the rest of my group, and it has been extremely fun solving the regular, unexpected problems that our robot gave us and redeveloping our bot to make it better and better each time."

The final event was hosted by loyal YEOTY supporter and ex-Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury, who joined forces with the BBC's Mike Bushell to take on the current World Champion battle bot, Spectre.

KMF's Young Engineer of the year is an annual project that aims to encourage youngsters to consider a career in science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM). Now in its seventh year, the initiative has engaged with over 23,000 students and invested over £800,000 into the STEM activity of local schools.

The competition is supported by creative engineering company Robo Challenge, Newcastle and Stafford College's Group and many other local businesses from across Stoke-on-Trent.

Next year, KMF will return with their eighth project, The Space Olympics, sending balloons into the atmosphere to complete an array of Olympic-themed tasks.

2019 Robot Rivalry Winners:

1. Young Engineer of the Year: Erazor, Endon High School
2. Robot Battle: Circuit Breakerz, St Thomas More Catholic Academy
3. Core Values: Erazor, Endon High School
4. Best Project: Wei's Bae's, Westwood College
5. Robot Design: Barbie Tingz, St Margaret Ward
6. Spirit of Young Engineer: Alsager Arrows, Alsager High School
7. Special Mention: Phlip, St Joseph's College

For information about YEOTY2020 and available sponsorship opportunities contact us, info@kmf.co.uk.