The fourth Hills Road RoboCon competition took place on the 12th and 13th of April 2023 at Hills Road Sixth Form College to great success. RoboCon 2023 launched in October 2022 with the game “Do androids dream of electric sheepdogs?”, a sheepdog trials themed game in which the ultimate goal was for a team’s robot to move (herd) sheep (cubes) into their pasture or pen. The blog post from the launch event can be found here.

After designing, building and programming autonomous robots in their own time over six months, nine teams put them to the test in the RoboCon arena at Hills Road.

# Results

First, the awards for characteristics that set teams apart from the rest:

The Frontier Innovation Prize – Cranbrook School

This award is given to the team that demonstrate that they have widened the field of possibilities through either an ingenious technical or logical development. Presented by Frontier Developments.

The Jeb_ Prize – Sawston Village College

This award is given to the team with the most robot and team flair.

The Never Gonna Give Ewe Up Prize – Bottisham Village College

This award is given to the team who demonstrate perseverance in the face of adversity.

The CMR Core Values Prize – King’s Ely

This award is given to the team that is people focused, ambitious, humble and fair & responsible. Presented by CMR Surgical.

And now, (drumroll) the podium positions

1st place (Presented by Frontier Developments) – Bottisham Village College

2nd place – Trumpington Community College Team 3

3rd place – King’s Ely

# Finally...

Thank you to all of the teams that competed in RoboCon 2023 for their outstanding progress and development, as well as the teachers who gave up their time to support them. It was a pleasure to watch your creations in action!

RoboCon is funded in its entirety by the generous support of local businesses and we’d like to thank our sponsors: Frontier Developments, The Technology Partnership, CMR Surgical and Microsoft.

Finally, we’d like to give a massive thank you to our mentors Will Munns and David Massey, whose support is invaluable to us and without whom RoboCon could not exist.

Watch this space for information about RoboCon 2024 in the coming months!

Don’t walk, do the robot!