AN appliance manufacturing company in Yate is sponsoring 12 schools to compete in a global Lego competition. 

Whirlpool Corporation, has announced the 2022/2023 season of the Lego league Bristol tournament will take place at its factory in Station Road, Yate.

Following a successful second year in Bristol, the company is once again providing fully funded places and robotics equipment to 12 local primary school teams.

An innovative global stem competition, the Lego leage challenge sees over 679,000 young people from around the world participating each year to design and build competitive Lego robots. 

Superpowered is the theme of this year’s challenge, which will encourage teams to present a solution to improve how energy can be stored, used and transferred. 

The event in March will be a culmination of the teams’ hard work throughout the winter months, during which students will use their creativity and problem solving skills to develop a robot that will attempt ‘missions’ on a playing board at the exhilarating tournament day. 

At the tournament, as well as being judged on the technical design of their robot, teams will have to demonstrate to a panel of industry judges how they have considered the core values integral to the challenge, which include discovery, teamwork, and impact. Participating teams will be in with the chance to represent Bristol at the national finals later in the year.

Ian Moverley, director of UK Communications at Whirlpool Corporation said: “We are delighted to be engaging with schools in the Bristol area to enable local children to participate in this unique competition. Building on the success of last year’s event, we are pleased to be able to offer fully sponsored places to an additional two schools on last year’s participants. 

"We hope that, by providing all teams with the robots and everything they need to compete, we can inspire more young people to develop critical STEM and transferable skills, including creativity and perseverance.”

Sponsored places for Whirlpool Bristol tournament On March 7, 2023, are still available; email Elle Roberts Nissen to find out more: elle.roberts-nissen@consciouscomms.com.