On Wednesday 13th September, The University of Kent held the First© Lego© League launch event for team coaches from schools across Kent and Medway. The attendees were a mixture of seasoned Lego League competitors and first time entrants. The tournament will take place on the 5 and 6 of December at the University of Kent, and the launch event was an excellent introduction to the challenges that the students needed to prepare for.
The theme for this year is Hydro Dynamics which will explore how to find, transport, use and dispose of water. The teams will be assessed in four areas: Table Challenge (Robot Game), Project Presentation, Teamwork and Technical Design. The launch event provided an exciting opportunity for team leaders to be introduced to the Hydro Dynamics challenges (including an opportunity to see the competition table set-up), talk to members of staff from the University of Kent about our role as hosts and meet fellow team coaches/mentors.
The event is aimed at young people ages 9 to 16 years and schools can enter teams of up to 10 students. The event promotes the study of Science, Technology and Engineering, and helps students to develop their research and team working skills. Partner and KMPF schools can benefit from being loaned the LEGO MINDSTORMS robot from the School of Computing to practise with, and can also receive in-school support with programming which will be delivered by specifically trained student ambassadors. In addition to this, there is also an opportunity for team coach support from staff based within the University of Kent’s Partnership Development Office and School of Computing.
For further information about the tournament, please contact Jamie Messer (event director) or Sammy-Jo (event administrator) via outreach@kent.ac.uk.