On Saturday students from around the UK (and Europe!) tuned in to our Kickstart event, marking the start of the SR2025 competition year. Our teams of 16-19 year olds learnt about the kit provided to them, the support we can offer them, and most excitingly about this years game, Urban Heights.
In Urban Heights our teams have been hired by the city to shape its skyline! Their mission is to deliver vital pallets of building materials to designated districts. But greater rewards await teams able to construct multi-story marvels. Can they build it? Yes they can! Feel free to check out the building codes for the exact details.
With just six months until the Competition our teams have their work cut out for them! Alongside building, programming, and testing their robots we’ve set some extra Challenges for teams, which can earn them additional league points. These challenges encourage teams to work on their robots from day one, helping them to learn to iterate and test early and often. We also have our Virtual Competition, run in our simulator, which will be livestreamed in early February.
This may seem like a mammoth undertaking, and it is, but the teams don’t have to go it alone! Our Discord provides teams with easy access to our volunteer Blueshirts and the wealth of knowledge they hold. Teams can ask for a Mentor, who will attend their regular meetings and provide guidance and advice throughout the year. We also host Tech Days, dedicated days where teams can hack on their robots with in person advice from our Blueshirts and meet other teams.
If you weren’t able to attend Kickstart this year, or would like a recap, you can:
- take a look at our pre-kickstart activities if you haven’t already
- watch our livestream where we explain the game and how this year’s competition will work.
- download the presentation in which we explain this year’s game and how the competition is running this year.
- download the microgames which are small activities designed to let you become familiar with the kit.
- If you’re a competitor, be sure to check out our Kickstarted, now what? guide for some next steps.
- If you’re a team supervisor, be sure to check out our guide on running a team for suggestions on how best to support your team.
We can’t wait to see what amazing creations our teams will build, and look forward to sharing their progress with you over the next six months!