The annual Lego League Regional Final took place at the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) Culdrose base, in Helston. Nearly 450 primary school pupils from schools across the region took part in this amazing, fun-filled event! This year’s competition had an archaeology theme. Combining imagination with mastery of engineering fundamentals, students confronted the challenges of several real-world problems through a gauntlet of tasks with self-made Lego robots.
Students used their creativity to construct robots for the competition ahead of time. They coded these robots to fill out different missions on an especially designed game board. The competition was a great, engaging, and hands-on learning experience. Students dove head-first into hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) related activities.
As Felicity Blight, the school secretary at Porthleven School told us, the event was hugely significant in furthering students’ STEM learning. The intensity of the competition, she said, made lots of room for collaborative and creative coding teamwork.
“It really builds on their STEM learning, they get to do a lot of coding and a lot of teamwork.” – Felicity Blight
Elowyn, one of the eager students to take part in this new initiative, told us that it was her favorite day ever!
“It’s a great experience for kids our age because you’re learning and still having fun.” – Elowyn
The competition was a powerful reminder of the importance of sticking with it in the engineering profession. George Slater, a representative from the event, remarked on the challenges faced by young engineers as they attempted to program their robots.
“The robots are not perfect, they will go wrong and they do go wrong, but the children get through that and persevere.” – George Slater
Slater to share that, for him, it was all about seeing the early stages of talent from the youngsters.
“It’s really great to see the potential naval engineers of the future having loads of fun, getting engaged in this sort of activity and doing some really impressive coding.” – George Slater
Collaboration was key to their success during the competition. Students engaged in group work as they worked to solve engineering challenges through communication and teamwork. Through collaborative problem-solving, the teams not only honed their technical skills, but fostered friendship with fellow classmates.