SHSK’s very first robotics team placed 2nd in the Student Robotics Competition 2025 held at the University of Southampton over the weekend of 12–13 April.
Team SHSK (Alexa, Lynnia, Clara and Mia) competed against 25 international teams. Each team played eight league matches, with the results determining seeding for a double-elimination knockout round. The challenge was to build an autonomous robot that could pick up and stack blocks in scoring zones.
Dressed up as characters from Alice and Wonderland – Alice, the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit – Team SHSK’s robot was beautifully decorated with drawings of teacups, 3D roses made of cards and a mirror at the back.
In the test arena, Team SHSK’s robot consistently picked up and stacked blocks. Each team had a total of six blocks to pick up in 2 and a half minutes. Throughout the competition, Team SHSK were able to troubleshoot, fine-tune and adjust their coding, and continued testing between matches and during break while sticking to their solid but simple strategy. The team placed 1st in all matches except one where they placed 2nd.
Team SHSK began the Saturday competition in rank 11 but by the end of the league matches they moved up to 2nd. They stormed through to the Grand Final, where they had their best run yet — collecting three blocks and battling to place the final one in the central tower.
In addition to winning the 2nd place Award, Team SHSK also won the Online Presence Award as well as Robot and Team Image Award with their Alice in Wonderland theme.
We asked Team SHSK about the competition:
What did competing in the Student Robotics Competition 2025 mean to you?
It was good to finally have an opportunity to do a long-term hands-on STEM project that included both research and creating a final product.
What is one thing that you’ve learned from this experience?
Throughout the whole project we learnt a variety of skills, including: about pulley systems and vacuum systems, using software to design parts like our claw, how to adapt materials we already had to create parts, how to solder motors, and how to integrate hardware and software. During the competition we learnt how to continuously adapt the code between rounds to fit new strategies, as well as how to fix unexpected hardware malfunctions that often came from the most unexpected places.
What was your favourite part?
We really enjoyed the sessions where we worked on it during the weekends and holidays, as not only were we able to make progress each time, we were also able to spend time with each other roasting marshmallows and frog-catching.
