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Congratulations to the Highgate team ‘Momento Mori’ – Maddy, Yasmin and Milan in Y9 – for their outstanding performance at the Vex Robotics national and international competitions.

At the end of April, they were crowned UK champions over the two-day competition in Telford, and last week, they finished in the top 100 teams in the world at the World Championship in Dallas USA.

Vex Robotics

Maddy, Yasmin and Milan have been working together as a team since the start of this academic year. They adopted the Latin expression ‘Momento Mori’ (‘Remember you must die’) for their team-name, in honour of its inspirational and motivational sentiments.

The team reflected: “Our journey this year in Vex IQ Competition pitching in has been truly incredible, up to three times a week out of our own time we have been working on this robot and practicing with it. For it to have finally paid off feels absolutely incredible, we cannot stress enough how great it has been through the highs and lows. We would personally encourage any younger pupils to join vex as it is truly an amazing experience with friends and teaches vital skills such as robotics in our ever-changing world.”

Mr Thomson, Director of Design, Technology and Engineering, continues: “I will always remember the amount of hard work, determination and passion this team puts into robotics. It is wonderful news that they were crowned UK Champions over the two-day competition.

“They definitely conquered the World championship, maybe not with trophies and winning the overall competition but winning with spirit, heart and having an experience which will stay with them for a lifetime. I am so proud of them and they have already inspired fellow students to give robotics a go. Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus!”

Vex Robotics Worlds

The World Championship was geared around supporting students in their STEM journeys and was sponsored by companies like Tesla, Google and Northrop Grumman – all who gave inspirational speeches about the interesting careers that are possible in STEM, with a particular focus on girls and empowering them to aim for such careers.

Out of 800 teams competing at the Worlds, only 100 of these made it to the Divisional finals, including the Highgate team. They ended up ranking 8th in the Divisional final and around 50th overall.

Like with any team, it is the preparation throughout the year, which is equally impressive in my eyes,” Mr Thomson reflects. “One of the main reasons why they were able to perform so well is all the hours of testing, practicing, teamwork, coding, failing, travelling to regional events and general passion and skill in STEM which gave them the platform to do so well.”

The final match of the UK tournament can be seen here on the @HighgateDTE Twitter account.