Over the weekend, AISG Lower Secondary students participated in the FIRST® LEGO® League Competition virtually against UISG, CISGZ, and NCPA. FIRST® LEGO® League is an international competition for Elementary and Lower Secondary students that guides them through STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) learning and exploration. Participants work together to gain real-world problem-solving experiences through a guided, global robotics program.

 

The students who competed have been working on their robot program for the last few months after school, designing and building their robot as well as coding. This year’s competition challenge is Cargo Connect, which focuses on cargo transport. Missions are centered around transportation safety, efficiency, connection, and access.

 

 

All our students who participated were new to the competition this year, and many of them were new to coding! It was inspiring to see them learn and develop new skills. During the competition, students had three 2.5-minute matches to complete as many missions as possible.

 

The competition included a live interview with three judges. Teams had to introduce themselves, show their robot and how it works, and explain any problems they had and how they overcame those problems as a team. They were also asked about their code and had to explain step-by-step how it worked. Students also completed one mission during the interview to show their robot moving.

 

Teamwork, innovation, and community are some of the core values of the FIRST® LEGO® League Competition, so students were also asked about their teams with questions like the roles they each had and how they overcame any tensions or arguments. They were also asked to state what they thought the most important invention of all time was and had to work together to answer with reasoning.

 

Our innovation coach Ms. Meg Gwalchmai said, “Mr. Lund and I were absolutely bursting with pride the entire day, especially during the interviews. I could not believe how confident, thoughtful, and articulate the teams were. They were extremely reflective of their programming work and their teamwork and I could tell how proud they were of their robot and of their efforts in programming.”

 

Student creation is at the center of what we believe technology and innovation are about at AISG. We take a student-centered approach to using technology to foster future-ready individuals. Learn more about our innovation initiative by clicking here.