Elrig has agreed to sponsor the Technobotts team in its venture to enter the Robocup 2010 in Singapore.
Elrig presented the Technobotts team with a cheque for GBP5,000 towards its 2010 competition.
In 2008/2009, Technobotts3 became the UK and Ireland First Lego League champions and represented the UK in the First World Festival in Atlanta in April, coming fourth in the world in the 'Robot Performance' and picking up the first-place trophy for 'Innovative Design'.
The team has since re-formed as a three-man team - Technobotts4 - and is now busy working to achieve success in Robocup Junior, a different international robotics competition.
Andrew Wightwick (14), Oliver Wightwick (12) and Eric Wieser (15) are entering Robocup Junior in the Search and Rescue and the Soccer categories, which involve different challenges from the First Lego League.
Their aim is to represent the UK in the Robocup 2010 competition in Singapore in June.
After a robotics demonstration at the Elrig (European Laboratory Robotics Interest Group) Drug Discovery conference in Liverpool in September, where Elrig pledged financial support for the team to help it travel to Singapore, the team approached John Lewis for assistance, as it needed additional robotics kits for the Soccer challenge.
The team's recent successes were achieved with 'Robert' the robot, which it received from Robert Sayle in 2007.
The team is now working to program its two soccer-playing robots, John and Lewis.
It will demonstrate its Search and Rescue robot, 'Robert 2' (this is a rebuilt version of the champion First Lego League robot) and an Alpha Rex robot, made with the new Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit, at John Lewis on 30 and 31 October.
