The Senior School VEX Robotics club is now in its second year. The L4 and U4 pupils involved flourished this year as they have competed in their first competitions. The pupils have worked in small teams to build, modify and program their own robots to compete in the VEX Robotics “Rapid Relays” game. The game lasts for only sixty seconds and teams work in an alliance with another team to collect mini footballs, pass them between the robots and then shoot the balls through a target to score points. The program not only introduces pupils to engineering principles and computer programming, but also encourages creativity, teamwork, leadership, and problem solving. Lower School have been using VEX Robotics within their classrooms for a number of years and have this year also chosen to introduce it as a club that will compete in the Rapid Relays competition. Having gained some experience of the competition this year, the Senior School Robotics team offered to help the Lower School team to prepare for their first ‘Rapid Relays’ competition being held at Ipswich School on Monday 10 February. On Tuesday 4 February and Thursday 6 February, the Lower School team accompanied by Mr Love, came to Fleming IT with their newly built robot to seek some help with how to program it and to get some practice driving it using the competition field set-up that we have for the pupils to practice on. The L4 and U4 pupils were excited to welcome the Lower School into their club and share with them some building and competition knowledge that they have gained. Significant progress was made by the Lower School team during the first session, Ollie and George from L4 introduced the Lower School programming team to the coding platform where they would be able to program their robot to function correctly and they quickly helped them to successfully program the drive train, intake motor and catapult arm for shooting the mini footballs. Our driving experts, Edward and Jj, demonstrated to the Lower School driving team how to control the robot and gave them lots of tips for playing the game. This collaboration has not only prepared the Lower School team for their competition but also fostered a sense of community and mentorship within the school. The Senior School pupils have demonstrated leadership and generosity, while the Lower School pupils have gained confidence and skills. Additionally, both Senior School robotics teams have now qualified to compete at the National finals, which will be held in Telford over two days at the beginning of March. This achievement is a testament to their hard work, dedication, and the collaborative spirit fostered within the club. We look forward to seeing how they get on in this next step of their Robotics journey.

The afternoon of Saturday 1 February saw the school's second ever Norhammer event, held in the elegant surroundings of the Bishop's Parlour library. This was an opportunity for players of Warhammer, and similar games, to play matches that generally take too long to be completed at the weekly after-school club. Many match-ups, some close and some not-so close took place including 4-way epic Warhammer 40k battle, some full-sized 200point Age of Sigmar battles, an introduction to Kill Team and a family Spearhead grudge-match that ended in a hotly contested draw! The intention is to run one of these events every term, the next being scheduled for June 7.