The event was hosted by AstraZeneca at their Mulberry's Sports Centre Alderley Park and supported by Young Technologists (FIRST LEGO Leagues operational partner in the UK) on the 15th November.

The FIRST LEGO League Challenge is a robotic team tournament for children aged 10-16 that combines a hands-on, interactive robotics program with a sports-like atmosphere and aims to trigger youngsters' interest in science & technology.

Teams consisted of 6-10 players focusing on team building, problem solving, creativity, and analytical thinking.  The teams faced challenges emulating a real world event or situation and researched, planned, built, programmed and tested a fully autonomous robot capable of accomplishing the Challenge.

The teams were given 8 weeks to prepare for the tournament.  Preparation included constructing the robot and completing the relevant scientific research.  AstraZeneca links closely with many schools in East Cheshire.  For this event the Company supported all the schools that took part by donating a LEGO Mindstorms kit for the challenge.

At the final event the teams met to pitch their robots' skills against each other in the "Robot Game" and their research findings were presented to a panel of judges of Engineers and Scientists from AstraZeneca and staff from Manchester University's Education Department.

Ten awards were given to the teams based on technical design, research, presentation, team performance and team spirit.  Each winning team were awarded a 'robot look-alike' trophy and all youngsters that took part received a medal and T-shirt.  The most prestigious of all the awards was the Champions Award and this was won by Holmes Chapel Primary School.  The team from Holmes Chapel Primary School and four other winning teams each from Alderley Edge Primary, Adlington Primary, St Mary's Catholic Primary and St Ambrose College will now proceed to the UK finals on December 4th at the ThinkTank in Birmingham.

Mr Will Spinks, AstraZeneca's Site General Manager at Alderley Park, presented the Champions award. He said: "Through this kind of friendly competition the youngsters develop valuable teamwork skills, creativity, an interest in technology and they learn about science and engineering while having fun."

AstraZeneca staff were also fundraising for 'Children In Need' and raised over £2,000.  During the competition ten Pudsey Bears were auctioned which raised £321 and each child received a CIN badge.