Mr Robertson took a tour of Durham County Cricket Club to see the plans in place for it to be used as a potential Pre-Games training camp venue and watched a sports demonstration at Deerness Leisure Centre.
Whilst in Durham, the Minister also saw how the 2012 London Games is inspiring a generation to be more active and creating a sporting legacy by awarding the Inspire Mark certificate to the local Robo Sport project. The project uses the inspiration provided by the Games to support young people’s understanding of control technology, design, engineering, science and maths and provides an excellent opportunity for young people to feel engaged with their learning and will help to develop team working skills.
Minister for Sport and Olympics, Hugh Robertson said: “Hosting the Games will benefit the North East. £12 million worth of construction contracts for the Olympic Park has been won by businesses from this region while there is also fantastic sports projects inspired by the Games happening in local communities across the North East.”
With the start of London 2012 was less than 200 days away this week, pupils from Red Rose Primary and Newker Primary visited the Learning Beyond the Boundary education centre to try out Robo Sports – a robotics activity that uses robotic technology to simulate Olympic sports.
The project, Robo Sports, has evolved out of Robo Cricket, a project that local school children have been participating in at the centre. Robo Cricket, as the name suggests, gives the chance to make a batter, bowler and runner from robotic technology.
This then gave the education centre staff, Dave Ross and Sally Landon, the idea to adapt the programme to use the London 2012 Olympics as the context for the robots.
The centre has recently been awarded the Inspire mark by LOCOG in recognition of the Robo Sports activity. Dave is hoping that a bid for a ‘Your Grant 2012’ will, if successful, allow the project to be taken to a wider range of schools in the region.
Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, visited the club and the education centre to present the Inspire Mark and see for himself the pupils trying out the Robo Sports project.
For more details on the project please contact Dave Ross on dave.ross@durham.gov.uk or 0191 387 2899