Hermitage teen brothers help build champion lego robot

Joseph and Robert Cornmell, aged 16 and 14, are part of a team of nine young engineers, known as C14 Robotics, who were crowned UK and Ireland First Lego League (FLL) Robotics champions after building and programming a Lego robot.
The home-educated teenagers come from Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire and run their experiments from the boys’ home in Hermitage.
The group also pass on their skills to children at a Lego Robotics club once a week and use their website and social media to raise the profile of engineering.
Joseph said: “I have really enjoyed taking part in the First Lego League and have learnt so much, like working together as a team and solving engineering problems. Going to the national competition was great and I'm really looking forward to meeting and learning more from the other teams at the World Festival and seeing how their robots work.”
The league, organised by the Institute for Engineering and Technology, encourages young people aged between nine and 16 to design, build and programme a Lego Mindstorms robot to complete a series of challenges.
The teenage engineers beat 460 other teams at Loughborough University earlier this month and were awarded the champions trophy by the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan.
The boys’ mother Kathy Cornmell said: “I have seen my two sons’ interest blossom from initially wanting to play with Lego to gaining a fuller understanding and curiosity for all aspects of an engineering project and what it involves.
“Their work with the FLL has also proved an inspiration to them and has made them think there are exciting opportunities in a career in engineering in the future.”
The team is on a fundraising drive to be able to take up their place representing the UK in the worldwide competition.
The nine young budding engineers have to raise £10,000 in order to compete against more than 100 teams in the FLL World Festival in St Louis, Missouri, in April this year. They have already been pledged £3,500 and are looking for companies to sponsor them with their names on their shirts and have started fundraising through bag-packing and organising a sponsored run.
For more information visit mindstormc14.weebly.com