The Legends, Robotics and Winning

The AFBE-UK NextGen programme is designed to promote and enhance the involvement of young people ages 8 to 17 in engineering and STEM fields. The programme has seen tremendous progress, building upon the success of the previous year’s events. In 2022, we held weekly coding club meetings, online STEM events, and practice sessions for the Lego League tournament. We successfully hosted a whopping 88 STEM events for our young people, including 11 NextGen Online STEM Events (NOSE), 46 NextGen Coding Club sessions, 20 (2022 CargoConnect) coding sessions, and 11 (2022 Superpowered) NextGen LEGO tournament coding sessions. The NextGen programme is continually improving and expanding, bringing exciting opportunities for young people to learn and grow in STEM fields.

NextGen Online Stem Event

The NextGen Online STEM event provides a platform for young people to learn about the impact that STEM professionals have on the world through talks about their careers in STEM. These events aim to raise public awareness of STEM opportunities and inspire our young participants to consider pursuing careers in STEM.

The NextGen Online STEM events feature industry leaders from a variety of fields and are held monthly. Since the programme’s inception, we have successfully hosted 32 events. This year began with the “Chemical Engineering and the Energy Transition” event with Dr Ollie Folayan on January 29th. Other notable events include “Recipe for a Skyscraper” with Roma Agrawal, “Engineering in Everyday Life” with Tony Fong, “JARVIS of Healthcare: 3D Printing (Future of MedTech)”, “Engineering is a bit of a GameSimulations, Analytics and Coding” with Adam Zalewski, “The Changing Faces of Space” with Dr Ciara McGrath, “Energy Transition” with Antonia Okeke, “Technology Scaleup” with Haddy Davis, “The Kid from Peckham” with George Imafidon, and “An Unconventional Path into Accounting” with Abena Oduro.

NextGen Coding Club

The NextGen Coding Club (NCC) is a dynamic organisation that empowers young people to learn coding, critical thinking, and leadership skills. Since March 7 2022, NCC has held over 35 weekly sessions, providing attendees with the opportunity to engage in activities such as creating games and animations with Scratch, coding websites, and programming robots. In addition to these technical skills, NCC also emphasises leadership and business development as part of its curriculum. The club’s goals include introducing students to web development concepts and giving them a platform to develop critical thinking skills. NCC also teaches students about electronics and digital systems using C/C++, Arduino, and other open-source tools. During sessions, students receive an introduction to HTML and CSS and work on projects to solidify their understanding of these concepts and showcase their creativity and presentation skills. Some students have even excelled beyond the general class pace in their understanding of these topics. The club has also introduced students to electronic components like LEDs, push buttons, breadboards, buzzers, and resistors, and has taught them how to use these components with Arduino development boards and circuit diagram software. Through hands-on projects, students have built and programmed a pedestrian crossing aid system and a 4-wheeled robot car.

The Next Gen annual online showcase will be held on Tuesday, January 24th, where the students will be showcasing their impressive work.

IET - First Lego tournament

“The NextGen team, known as “The Legends,” participated in the IET FIRST LEGO League Grampian regional tournament on Wednesday, April 25th, 2022, winning the best robot design award and making it to the Scottish Finals on Saturday, June 11th, 2022, at the Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc in Dundee.

At the Scottish finals, The Legends won the Sustainability award for their innovative project, “Designing a Hydrogenfuelled Autonomous Space Drone Ship for Delivering Cargo to Remote/Unapproachable Places on Earth, in Space, and Interplanetary.”

The team also ranked 5th place overall at the Robotics tournament with their robot, SOPHY, making it to the quarter-final stage.”

After their impressive showing at the tournament, The Legends have returned to their training grounds, ready to tackle the next season’s competition, called Superpowered, which focuses on using robots to aid in the renewable power supply to people and places around the world.

This work was made possible through the volunteering of Urenna Adegbotolu, Araz R. Khojasteh, Chikezie Ekeh, Daniel Eze, Gift Ekeh, Amarachi Ochieze, Amara Nwaogazie, Surakat Kudehinbu, Cyril Ishabiyi, Mo Oyetunji, Emmanuel Oni, Aniobi Moses, Paul Okpozo, Osamagbe Igiehon, Victor Obaro and the NodeX ihub team; the donations of our sponsors: Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) Norwell EDGE, Johnson Matthey, National Lottery; the kind support of Aberdeen Science Centre and Fountain of Love Church Aberdeen; and the AFBE Co-Founders, Dr Ollie Folayan MBE CEng FIChemE Dr Nike Folayan MBE CEng., FIET for all your support.

Article by Dr Urenna Adegbotolu

Dr Urenna V. Adegbotolu is the AFBE-UK NextGen Programme Coordinator. She loves to help young people develop their passion and purpose in life through career, leadership and entrepreneurship coaching. As a STEM Ambassador, she enjoys helping young people discover the applications of science, engineering, technology and mathematics in the world around them whilst creating a sustainable environment and future for themselves.