A HORSHAM based software business is celebrating the success of a college robotics team who recently represented the United Kingdom at a worldwide competition.
Red River, based at Springfield House in Horsham, sponsored the robotics team from Collyer’s which was made up of five students, all of whom competed in the 2022 FIRST Global Challenge, an Olympic style, international robotics competition.
The team was comprised of Tamsin Howe, Kian Robins, Muhie Al Haimus, Oscar Detnon and Jeremy Ghinn.
The robotics championships took place in Geneva, Switzerland over the course of a week in the middle of October. More than 180 countries competed and teams worked together in rotating alliances to complete tasks in a game themed around carbon capture, one of the greatest challenges facing the planet.
“Our team represented the UK, which is an enormous achievement for these students, when you bear in mind they have been affected by a large break in schooling thanks to Covid,” CEO of Red River, Simon Pringle, explained.
“We’re so proud to support such a talented and enthusiastic team of young people, we enjoyed receiving the updates from their mentor and, whilst they didn’t win, are so pleased they got the opportunity to compete against so many talented teams from across the world.”
The final play offs of the competition followed two days of league rounds in which teams gained points for their alliance and a place in the final rounds.. The top award, the FIRST Global Winning Alliance Award, was awarded to the four teams in the winning alliance in the final match: Lithuania, Belize, Switzerland and Botswana.
Diane Dowling, who supports the Collyer’s team as a mentor, said:
“The Collyer’s team was a credit to their college and did an amazing job of representing the UK and putting Horsham on the map. We are so grateful to Red River for supporting the team and enabling them to take part.”
One of the members of the team, Tamsin said:
“It was a once in a lifetime experience for all of us. Before the event we hadn’t realised the sheer scale of it. The inventor of Segway, Dean Kamen was there and it was such a big deal to have him there. To just be with so many people from so many different countries was really awe inspiring. Since our return I’ve had a lot of people asking me about the competition and now our club, which had about seven people last year, now has 23.”
Fellow team member Muhie added:
“The whole thing was an incredible experience, it really was the Olympics of robotics, I even went out with the flag to represent our country and felt so proud. Everything about the week was inspiring.”
Red River is a software development company based in Horsham that regularly supports various educational groups in their tech endeavours, including work experience, supporting T Levels and sponsoring or mentoring various robotic and coding competitions across the area.
