Ontario Students Participate in First Lego League

Hellego! Last weekend, hundreds of Ontario students participated for the First Lego League provincial championships!

The First Lego League introduces kids aged 9 to 14 to the fun of science and technology. Kids build and program their own robots using the Lego Mindstorms technology to create the most innovative solution to a problem. They then place their robots on a themed playing field and develop a solution to the problem presented to them. Some past challenges have been about climate, quality of life for the handicapped, transportation and much more.

The students headed over to Oshawa and the students were able to demonstrate their solutions to fix real world problems affecting their community. The Toronto Star interviewed some of these kids to know what they had to say.

"Mateen Mirzaei, 14

Robot Rulers, Aurora

This is more advanced than the Lego most people know. What drew you to join your school team?

I built robots before the club, but not as advanced as this. You can connect motors to it and sensors and actually program it — like a real robot.

Your team got to speak with a NASA scientist while preparing for the competition. How was that experience?

Amazing. (A NASA robot) is not all that different than this. It proves that it’s possible. They’re just making a robot that’s going to space and it’s more accurate. But ours is a toy. It’s not as accurate as you want it to be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t."

"Madeleine Kennedy, 12

The Musical Misconceptionists, Toronto

This is your first year with your school’s robotics team. What made you want to join?

There was an open house at our school and I saw the team perform. I’m interested in technology so the robot was really cool. Last year, I think 70 people tried out but only 10 made it.

Your team also made a song to tackle some of the hysteria around Ebola. How did you choose the topic?

We thought Ebola was a serious issue and there were so many misconceptions about it, so we wanted people to make people aware and not afraid. People were saying our music teacher had Ebola. It wasn’t true, and we wanted to end these misconceptions."
Credit: the Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/01/17/lego-league-competitors-talk-science.html

The First Lego League is a great way to get kids creative and teach them about science. The kids had lots of fun this past weekend. If you would like to learn more about this competition, you can visit http://www.firstlegoleague.org/