Regal Rentals is proud to announce its sponsorship of Cumbria’s Ashfield Junior School in their FIRST LEGO League.

The FIRST LEGO League is a global science and technology competition which sees pupils from various schools competing nationally. In total, more than 250,000 young people are taking part in the scheme.

This years’ theme is HYDRO DYNAMICS, challenging pupils to learn all about water – how we find it, transport it, use it or dispose of it.

Team members must research the subject as a team, identify one or more missions to solve then build, test and program an autonomous robot that can solve the mission or missions using LEGO MINDSTORM.

10 pupils at the school aged between 9 and 11 are taking part in the challenge.

The FIRST LEGO League launched in 1999 and is a way for schools to encourage children to develop key skills that will be useful for their future careers and increase their general awareness of real world issues.

The school’s entry in the competition is being supported by Regal Rentals, an independent licensee of AVIS Budget, which operates 13 branches across the North of England and Scotland including in Workington, Barrow In Furness, Carlisle and Lancaster.

Sandra Stainton, Teacher at Ashfield Junior School said: “The children are really enjoying their FIRST LEGO League and finding out more about water and its origins.

“They are in the process of working up a solution to make water drinkable and creating a robot that can help them in this mission. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is one of the most popular parts of the programme.

“We ran a LEGO club last year at the school and the children really enjoyed it so naturally, when we heard about the FIRST LEGO League we jumped at the chance. We are so grateful to have the backing of Regal Rentals.”

Tony Burns, Commercial Manager at Regal Rentals said: “We are delighted to give our support to Ashfield Junior School in funding this fantastic competition.

“We are pleased to hear that the scheme has so far been very successful for the school and we can’t wait to see what the children have designed.

“We think the FIRST LEGO League is a fantastic way to open up opportunities for children to develop their skills in science and technology-based subjects and spark an interest that wasn’t necessarily there before.”

The children were also keen to speak about how much they are enjoying the FIRST LEGO League.

It’s good because I like building Lego and I like studying how to get water to different places.” – Roman

It’s fun to work with Lego and I enjoy coding robots. I have researched coding at home as well.” – Kaidyn

I think it’s fascinating to be able to build robots out of Lego. It is very creative and helps children’s imaginations.” – Elyse

I enjoy programming robots and building them. I hope to do something like this in my job in the future.” – William

Find out more about the FIRST LEGO League here.