Raising Robots has gifted a Rowner Junior School student a £360 Lego set to build his own robot arm

Albert McCormick, eight, from Gosport, was born with half of his left arm missing but has not let that prevent him from achieving his goals. He has been given a £360 Spike Prime Lego set from Raising Robots.

Albert’s mum, Emma McCormick, said: ‘It was a really fantastic opportunity for Albert and it was such a surprise for him, and having that given to him was lovely.’

The youngster, who attends Rowner Junior School, Gosport, was introduced to David Aguilar, who built himself a prosthetic arm using Lego, by Stephen Shaw, who had been attending the school to show the children the possibilities of Lego.

Stephen, who is an academy accredited Lego trainer, began attending Rowner in June 2020 as part of the school’s pandemic recovery scheme to help introduce Lego into the curriculum.

These lessons also gave teachers the opportunity to speak to individual children about their learning and well being post-pandemic, and during Stephen’s sessions he showed the students what David Arguilar had done with Lego.

After seeing the prosthetic creation, Albert was in awe of David and Stephen said that Albert turned to him and said ‘Mr Shaw this would be really good for me.’

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Albert was fascinated with the creation, so Stephen discussed it with his boss, who decided to give Albert the Lego set, and Stephen purchased David’s book for him.

Albert was surprised with the gift at school on November 9 where his dad, Joe McCormick, and Stephen met him in the library in a quiet reveal.

Stephen said: ‘His little face lit up. When he walked into the room and he saw me it was brilliant; he walked in further and saw his dad and had to do a double-take because he didn’t know he was there.’

After Albert received the Lego, Stephen went to his class to tell the students his story.

Stephen said: ‘It was lovely because afterwards they all broke out into spontaneous applause for him.’

Albert said: ‘It feels really good to have this and the book because ever since I saw that video, I really wanted to build my own robot arm.’