4th Class had great fun participating in the First Lego League Explore initiative over the past few weeks. This is a STEM programme which encourages students to investigate a real world theme, develop teamwork, design & coding skills and have fun!
The First Lego League theme this year is MASTERPIECE. We worked with STEM in the Arts themed lego sets designed to inspire curiosity around STEM in creative fields of work. We also needed our school Lego Spike kits and our Chromebooks to code.
We began by learning about different types of stadiums including the Colosseum's amazing engineering feats making our way to modern day stage production. The children worked in groups to complete many First Lego League challenges. The class had to build a stage that reflected their interests in groups using FLL boxes. Next, the groups had to make & code 3 moving models and then modify them to be useful in their project e.g. make a spinning merry go round, then modify it into a rotating stage.
The last activity was open ended - building and coding their own idea that would add to their stage arena project! Great creativity was on display! Ideas included a tour bus bringing the performers to the stage, a ferris wheel and pinball game to entertain the concert goers, a helicopter to transport the VIPs. One group even created a ticket checker machine that used colour motion sensor and asked "tickets please". If the ticket was green, a voice said "ticket accepted", if the ticket was red, a voice said "ticket declined!".
Take a look at the creativity and fun here!