Let the Luton Leonardo robot wars begin!

Budding young engineers were asked to build a robot from scratch and enter it into four tough tournament games, including: a two-a-side football competition, an assault course, a sumo wrestling match and a tug of war.

The games were organised by Leonardo, based at Capability Green, and the annual event is designed to maximise students’ mechanical skills and encourage team work.

It also celebrated the life of Da Vinci and pupils were encouraged to get into the ‘Leonardo mindset’ by overcoming challenges and creating new inventions.

Niall Ingram, of Leonardo’s VP Engineeering team, said: “It’s one thing to hand out kits and provide guidance on engineering skills, but I really began to feel that I was observing budding engineers of the future when I saw them gathering together in the pit stops sorting out unforeseen problems, cheering other on and pushing themselves to help their team achieve their best possible performance.

“I hope this experience helps them understand just how important teamwork is in engineering.”

One particularly hard challenge that students were asked to do was to see if they could design wheels, which would drive easily in one direction and skid in the other.

Pupils took part from Luton Sixth Form College, as well as Lea Manor, Ashcroft, and Denbigh high schools.