Engineering ScrapBot Olympics

Building robots in the state of the art engineering facilities? Yes please. ScrapBot Olympics, part of Future Stars, lets your students get hands-on with all things engineering.

ScrapBot Olympics is a hands-on engineering challenge for Year 7-8 pupils, encouraging creativity, teamwork, and practical problem-solving. Using a robotics kit (supplied by UEA) and recycled materials they collect themselves, participants will work together in teams of 4-6 to design and build their own unique ScrapBot.

You and your students will be invited to attend our launch event on Thursday 15 January 2026, where you’ll collect your ScrapBot kit and we’ll take you through the whole process. You’ll also have the chance to meet UEA staff and students and ask any questions. From there, your students will have eight weeks to design and build their ScrapBot. During this time, we’ll offer optional online drop-in sessions with UEA Engineering staff, just in case your students need any help along the way.

The project will wrap up with the exciting ScrapBot Olympics event on Thursday 12 March 2026, where your students and their Bots will compete in fun challenges like sumo, hungry hippos, and an obstacle course. The winning team will be crowned ScrapBot Champions, earning a trophy and certificates to take home.

You can expect them to get involved with engineering topics and equipment that they haven’t had a chance to explore yet – opening up their horizons on the subject and developing their passion. To get the most out of this activity, they’ll need to do around 2-4 hours work outside of the sessions run by our team.