Chelsea Foundation recently held the finals of its innovative 'Robot Football League', which supports STEM education amongst local schoolchildren. ConnectSport reporter Tanish Tiwari was invited along to Stamford Bridge to find out more.

‘STEM’ (or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is education which acts as the driving force for technological growth. In other words, it is responsible for building our future.

This is why it is so important to effectively communicate the significance of this field to future generations. However, when it comes to teaching the younger age groups, the medium of instruction becomes just as important as the content itself.

INGENIOUS

Keeping this in mind, Chelsea Foundation came up with the ingenious idea of using a ‘Robot Football League’ to impart STEM education. This includes a 10-week-long coding programme for children aged between eight and 10 years of age, leading up to a competition at the club’s Stamford Bridge stadium. Like football, the aim of the game was to have the ball end up inside the goal - but with a technological twist to it.

With students from three local primary schools participating in the event, the format was simple as multiple teams of either two or three members playing six games each, with the winner being the team with the most wins in a league consisting of nine teams. 

Instead of physically kicking a ball, the students used the ‘Sphero’ app on an iPad to manipulate the moment of a small spherical robot ball (Sphero Bolt) by coding the desired path into the sphere’s software.

However it wasn’t as simple as it sounds, because scoring a goal required more than the ball stopping within a two-dimensional goal zone, the teams needed to pass over a player sticker cleverly positioned on the pitch as well. This subtle rule made it trickier to code in the path of the robot ball as it involved multiple changes in direction, thereby demanding greater accuracy and sophisticated programming. 

However, the students were well prepared for this as they had already acquainted themselves with the software and the rules of the game during the 10-week course before this event.

ENGAGING

Unlike football, it did not involve defending, as both teams simultaneously attacked opposite ends of a small pitch. The winning team from St Barnabas & St Philip’s School was presented with official Chelsea merchandise as their reward. 

Speaking about the preparatory course, the Project Lead and Chelsea Foundation’s Senior School Education Officer, Stefano D’Errico, explained: “We tried to make it engaging, something related to the competition and to create a buzz amongst the students.

“Every week, we introduced a new rule of the game and gave them the opportunity to practise and familiarise themselves with it.”

Stefano’s enthusiasm for the project was replicated by the students in the room as they visibly improved with each attempt and scored more goals. With more goals came cheers, screams, oohs and aahs galore!

TEAMWORK

When asked about the course curriculum, Stefano added: “There are elements of programming, block coding, strategic thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork, as the competition was always the end goal of the journey.”

The format of the game was structured in such a way that it naturally taught students to recover from failed attempts and improve upon their mistakes when they started coding the sphere’s path again.

Ali Stock, Curriculum Lead at St John’s Walham Green, felt that students developed a “resistance to failure”.

“In projects like this, they learn that they can fail, and they can just go again,” he said. “It is a skill to go back and see what hasn’t worked and it just builds their resilience.”

DISPARITY

The Robot Football League also aims to address gender disparity in STEM which has been a criticism of the industry. Data collected by King’s College in 2024 showed that women only count for 30% of the entire STEM workforce in the UK.

Ali explained: “The reason why we picked 15 girls for this was exactly that. I think projects like this are brilliant for proving to those girls that you can do coding too if that’s something you’re interested in.” 

Although there are many girls and young women interested in sports and football, Ali is not sure how many were interested in coding before this initiative. Perhaps all you need is a 10-week project to “spark that interest.” He adds. “This is something that these girls can carry for the rest of their school lives with us.”

Chelsea Foundation’s Schools Education Manager, Sam Mardle, highlights previous initiatives that have looked to address this issue, using the ‘Girl-powered’ campaign as an example. This is a female-only regional robotics championship organised at Stamford Bridge in collaboration with Vex-Robotics

Their actions are evidence enough to suggest that this is clearly at the forefront of Chelsea Foundation’s overarching Digital Blue campaign. He adds: “These are baby steps, and we are trying our best to bridge this big gap with initiatives like this.” 

COMMUNITY

The local community plays a huge role in planning these activities as the Foundation engages with them and looks to address their short-term and long-term needs through large-scale campaigns like ‘Digital Blue’ and ‘Inspire Her’ amongst others. 

Specialised programmes and events like The Robot Football League exemplify just how much the club and its foundation truly care about the people they engage with. The work they do is not just about preparing the next generation for their careers but equipping them with the tools to shape our future too.

Click here to find out more about the work of the Chelsea Foundation.

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