First Lego League Junior - BoomTown Challenge

A group of HErs, including DD2, set up a Lego robotics team, in order to enter the First Lego League Junior.  In my area, there has been success with HErs entering FLL in previous years, sometimes not only winning regional heats, but national and internationally too!  This was the first time (that I know of) that a local HE group entered the Junior league.

The group was made up of six children between 6-9years old, and we met fortnightly for 2 hours from September/October to February.  For their age group, they were taking part in the Boomtown Build Challenge - designing and building a building from lego, incorporating a part that uses robotics and is programmable.  Most weeks, they were guided by a workbook which took the children through exercises looking at different parts of designing a building:

• What will the building be used for? 
• Who will be using it? Is it accessible?
• Is it strong? Is it stable?
• Is it environmentally friendly? etc

And there were small programmable mechanical/robotic structures to build such as a crane, an elevator, an automatic door, a fan etc.  Near the end of the weeks, the children had to decide upon a final building with which to enter the competition, build it, do posters to display and write a presentation for the judges.  They had lots of ideas, but rather than the oldest/bossiest/loudest child taking charge and demanding it all be done their way, they decided amongst themselves to use as many ideas as possible, and soon The Boom Eiffel was born!

One of the children particularly likes the Eiffel Tower, and as other children (incl DD2) have been there too, it was decided as a group that the design of our building would be based on the shape of the Eiffel Tower.

The base was made up of four separate rooms: pet shop, aquarium, cafe and souvenir shop.  In the build of the building was the elevator, to carry people up to the next floor.  The next floor consisted of a learning centre, where people of all ages can learn together, and a gym.  The next floor up was open to the air as it was a rooftop garden, and finally the very top floor was a cafe, serving produce from the garden, with a balcony so people could look out over Boomtown.  On the roof of the cafe was a wind turbine, some solar panels and a lightning rod.

Each child then created a poster to be displayed, and had to write their own presentation.  As DD2 built the garden and is concerned about the environment, she focussed on that side of things, whilst others talked about how the building was accessible and who would be using it.  Unfortunately, as DD2 was busy competing in a dance festival on the day of the Expo, we recorded her presentation in advance, so it could be shown with the rest of the team.

On the day of the Expo, the children were nervous but had a great time.  They spoke with the judges and other competitors, and all the children were given matching Tshirts so they could feel like a team.  And we are very proud to say that they won the prize for Complexity and Design!

The kids are doing their presentation again next week, at a local science fair during British Science Week, but they met up earlier this week to congratulate each other and to give DD2 her medal.

I was proud of myself for making a lego cake to share, lol.