First LEGO League helps foster communication skills
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The State Championship for the first LEGO League (FLL) held at UMBC annually is designed to teach students the importance of education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), helping students collaborate and develop necessary skills at an early age. FLL is an international program for children created in partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Company in 1998. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering.
This past January 64 teams competed in the championship. Qualifying events were added at nine locations to determine the 64 best teams out of 160 that registered, Maryland FLL's to experience its busiest year ever. "We've grown from less than 100 teams last year to more than 160 FLL teams in Maryland," said Anne Spence, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and FLL affiliate partner for Maryland. The robots are going to look not like a person but, like a put together Lego device 6 by 8 by 6 inches, which varies but is the general rule of thumb.
Teams compete by building programmable, motorized robots from LEGOs while researching and reporting on specific topics. this year's theme was the smart move, based on projects and tasks related to transportation. About 500 students' ages 9-14 participated in the FLL and acted with integrity and professionalism as they moved from round to round. "We know we aren't producing enough engineers especially, Americans engineers, and we need to attract students while they are young, so we give them experience when they are young thats why we like to focus on k16," said Spence. "Playing with Lego robots as a kid greatly increased my interest in robotics and in a roundabout way, mechanical engineering. being able to program a toy to 'pick up a cup' for example is something my father worked on as a graduate student in college, and the fact that I was able to work with something as practical and interesting at the age of ten shows the great education benefit the Lego company has brought to kids all over the world since its humble beginnings in the 1950s," said Mike Allison, freshman media and communications major. Teams are judged on the technical characteristics of their robot, how well it performs tasks, the quality of the teams project and how well the team works together.
"If you have not seen one of these competitions, go," said Jonathan Wray, secondary mathematics instructional facilitator for Howard County Public Schools. "It rivals American Gladiators and any other major competitive sports event." a highlight of the day was one team ringing up a very rare perfect score of 400 points in the Robot Performance round. To accomplish this, the team and its robot had to perfectly execute nine missions such as picking up things, raising an arm, and moving over a bridge Maryland's largest Jr.FLL Expo was also held at UMBC on January 30. About 100 students ages 6-9 from 30 teams presented their research projects and models, also based on the Smart move Challenge. The kids put a lot of thought and effort into their projects."
Freshman engineers in the mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and computer engineering majors at UMBC competed head to head in teams as a part of their course work this year. The teams are a combination of at least one of each major. this is not an annual project, however Spence decided to see what would happen if she assigned the UMBC students the same project as the FLL kids. "It's kind of like are you smarter than a middle schooler?" said Spence. it is important for these up coming engineers to know how to communicate with each other and build real world experience. next year, UMBC students may use the brain (nxt brick small computer) of the robot and some other parts to build a hovercraft. it is extremely important that Engineers learn solid communication skills because when they graduate they will most likely work in teams, which are usually formed of people with different backgrounds.
First LEGO League helps foster communication skills
Tags: Engineering, lego company, Howard County, lego league, Anne Spence, science technology