Derby pupils jet off to US for international robotics tournament

Ujjwal (left) and Sami (right) will take control of the robot during the tournament

Academy students have jetted off to the US to take part in an event dubbed one of the world's largest robotics competitions.

Entering as Beast, the six Landau Forte College Derby pupils have designed a robot that will face contenders from Australia, Canada and China.

The students form part of the only UK team in their category in the Create US Open Tournament in Iowa.

Their teacher described it as a "fantastic opportunity".

The students are competing in the event's middle school division, which contains more than 60 teams.

The robot the students have created

The robot competes against an opposition robot, which has to pick up coloured blocks, which it then has to distribute into goals to score points.

Ujjwal, 14, is one of the students who has travelled for the tournament.

He said: "We start against another team across the field and each of the blocks are laid out in a different orientation.

"We have to pick these blocks up and dispose them in three different goals. The goals have different height levels, so the more blocks you get in each goal, the more points you get."

The robot has to pick up coloured blocks and distribute them into different goals to score points

Another pupil, 13-year-old Sami, says he is nervous to participate in such a big tournament.

He added each match was just a minute long, with the robot driver being swapped after 30 seconds.

"It's going to be intimidating as there is going to be quite a lot of people watching us play," he said.

"The robot is controlled with something similar to a video game controller. Ujjwal takes control in the first half who collects up all the cubes, he swaps it over to me who has to deposit them all to get all the points."

Teacher Isaac Armah said the students had "worked so hard" to be invited

Isaac Armah, who teaches computer science, said: "This is obviously a fantastic opportunity for these young people.

"The moment the competition got announced, the pupils worked really hard to make it happen. To think that they've done so well on a national level with us not having the funds other schools have, that makes us as a school really proud."