VNATION get ready for Champs!

Ahead of the National Championships on 21st June, our robotics team VNATION participated in a scrimmage at St John Fisher! They joined the team at St John Fisher, along with teams from Derby Grammar School and CREATED Academy. Together, the four teams practised using their robots, made important improvements, got to know each other and gave each other advice and support. Along with the group from Woodhouse Academy, we will represent our region at the First Tech Challenge National Championships. We hope that we can bring awards back home and show that the students at St Margaret Ward can stand up there among the best in the entire country!

In the past few months between the qualifying tournament and the upcoming National Championships, VNATION have:

Led a national webinar to teach other students across the country how to build and inspect their robot.

Sent their robot (Vegatron) on tour to visit the First Lego League finals as an exhibition robot.

Planned and delivered assemblies to local primary schools.

Planned and delivered mini STEM competitions to primary school students when they visit the school.

Created their own fundraiser that has raised over £200 in the last two weeks.

Connected and networked with other teams across the country.

Rebuilt and reprogrammed their robot to refine it for Champs

… and the Year 11s in the team have started their GCSEs, too! The rest of the team has all their fingers and toes crossed for your success.

If you would like to support our hard-working robotics group, they are still accepting donations on their GoFundMe fundraiser, which allows them to buy additional parts for their robot, and to buy resources that they will use to deliver STEM sessions to our local primary schools. They are very proud of their outreach work and enjoy trying to inspire the students at our feeder schools. Their robot is also desperately in need of new parts, as they have maintained the same kit since 2018 and some of the parts are running out. The GoFundMe can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-VNATION-storm-champs

If you have Instagram, the team would also welcome any support and encouragement you can offer on their Instagram account, @vnationftc.

They leave for Champs at 5AM on 21st June and will work tirelessly before then to be well prepared and make the school and our community proud! We wish them the best of luck.