A TANKERSLEY school whizz-kid and his team will be the first contestants to represent the UK at a robot championships in China in December.
Six year-old Alexander O’Carroll, along with his team mates, Sofia Armitage and Allen Yang, managed to bag themselves a place at the WER World Championships in Shanghai after coming second in the World Educational Robot (WER) Contest back in July.
The trip to compete in Shanghai is expensive and a total of £5,500 is needed to be raised to pay for the team’s flights, accommodation and other expenses while over there, which is why a crowd funding appeal has been set up.
Alex’s mum, Liz, of Wortley Road, High Green, said: “We’re very proud of what they’ve achieved. When they started it was just a bit of fun and no one had any idea how big this thing was.
“It’s an awesome opportunity for them to represent their country, but it’s not going to be cheap so we need all the help we can get.”
Alex, who attends Tankersley St Peter’s Primary, said: “I’ve always enjoyed building robots and would love to be a robot scientist one day, I’m so excited about competing in Shanghai.”
The team was brought together by the Discovery STEM Education organisation based in the Kelham Island in Sheffield.
To get their place at the championships the trio had to build a robot and then programme it to do certain tasks, things like litter-picking and operating a GPS system.
This also prepared them for what’s to come in Shanghai where more than 500,000 four to 18-year-olds from more than 50 countries will compete in building their own robot and then instructing them to complete various tasks.
