Taylorian 2020

43 News News French Drama M TS Robotics established itself as a force to be reckoned with this season, with seven teams taking part in the Vex Robotics global game challenge. The competition is a design and engineering problem presented as a game. Teams design, build, and code a robot to overcome the challenge and teams from other clubs. The game is played in regions all over the world, with the best teams in each region being invited to national finals. It was estimated that 23,000 teams took part in the game challenges last year. The MTS club is established on the foundation of having fun, learning, sharing ideas, and competing well. The atmosphere was amazing: teams would be working together to solve the game challenge, test out solutions, and develop new ideas.  Our roboteers devoted time to fine-tuning designs and working on elegant coding solutions. This soon started to pay off as our teams were regularly ranked at the top of the table at regional competitions. During the season, they picked up fourteen regional trophies, and all seven teams were invited to compete at the National Finals. Even here, the MTS Robotics teams started to stand out. After four days of intense competition for M erchant Taylors’ was one of thirteen schools which entered this year’s Independent Schools French Drama Competition at King Alfred School. Adam Haffar and Emilio Rimini (both U6th) performed a scene from Florian Zeller’s play Le Père, the sombre subject matter of an ageing father struggling with memory loss contrasting with the many performances of Pre U-inspired comedies. Adam’s portrayal of the central character André was hugely impressive, and he was rewarded with the coveted prize of Best Performance in a Leading Role. Emilio played his part to perfection, showing the right mix of sensitivity and firmness as a nurse, Martine, who does her utmost to tend to the subversive whims of André. One of the judges spoke to the boys afterwards, commending them on their outstanding effort. After winning both senior and junior teams, theMTS squad were poised for a tense last fewmatches and a chance to win a national trophy. In a dream finish, two of the junior MTS Teams, MTS_ Terrorbytes and MTS_WWCU, joined forces for the Teamwork Challenge and won the tournament: they are National Champions! As the commentator said at the event, ‘they knew where the bar was, and they not only passed it, they absolutely smashed it’. This is the first time an ‘all-school’ alliance has ever taken both top spots in the Teamwork Challenge, so it is particularly special. As if it couldn’t get any better, another of our teams, MTS_TrashCompactor, came second with their alliance partner. Best Play in 2017 and 2019, this maintains MTS’ fine recent record in the competition, one in which the standard seems to get higher every year. Many thanks to French Following this commanding performance at the national finals, four of our teams were invited to represent the UK at the World Championships. These were due to take part in Kentucky, USA inApril. In addition to the three junior teams MTS_T3TR15, our L6 senior team were invited to join ‘Team UK’. As we all know, COVID-19 had other ideas, but let that not distract from the outstanding achievement of so many of our teams now competing at a world standard. Watch out for next season. Teams have been selected and the boys are keen and eager to continue the success of the 2019-2020 season. Mr A C Duffey Assistant Iris Zaïm, who directed the scene with aplomb. Mr J M S Rippier Vex Robotics