Perse pupil in control at major robotics competition

Sattvik (Year 7) cracked the code with success at an international robotics competition.

He was a member of the Cambridge Electronics & Robotics Club (CERC) team that came third in the junior novice category of the prestigious Pi Wars event.

Held at Cambridge University’s Department of Computer Science and Technology, the competition brought together teams of roboteers from as far afield as the USA and Nigeria.

Teams were set a variety of challenges to test their Raspberry Pi-controlled creations’ capabilities, with points earned across each task adding up to overall scores.

Sattvik said: “It was a great experience and good to do so well. There were people from all over the world there and although it was a competition, everyone spoke to each other and it was quite friendly.

“There were six of us in the team, but on the day only four of us could attend, and when something went wrong, we had to try to work it out, but it was a lot of fun.”

Operating the Python-coded CERC Bot, Sattvik said his favourite tests were ‘Temple of Doom’ and ‘Minesweeper’.

He said: “The ‘Temple of Doom’ was a huge maze with different challenges, including having to hit three buttons to dislodge a ‘bomb’, going as fast as you could over a treadmill that tried to slow you down, and going between two walls that were going up and down.

“With ‘Minesweeper’, there was a 4×4 grid and you had 60 seconds to go to each square as it lit up and we got 26, which was very good.”

Sattvik, who began coding using simple Scratch block programming when he was just four years old, said he hoped to take part in Pi Wars again.

He added: “I love maths and computer science because I like the journey of getting to the answer. Coding is hard, but once you get to the right answer, it’s very rewarding.”