LEGO League Jr. Expo at the IET's offices at Michael Faraday House on Wednesday 13 March 2019.The science and technology challenge, which is aimed at 6-9 year olds, tasks teams to build a LEGO Model and program one moving element, whilst also researching the annual theme. This year’s theme is called MISSION MOONSM – looking at how humans could survive and live on the moon taking into account how to breathe, what to eat and drink and what other problems we might face.Coached by IET colleagues, six teams of primary school children showcased their work, which included a Moon Base that had to include a moving element and a research poster, which showed all that they had learnt about the moon.
Team coach of the Round Diamond team, IET colleague and Mum, Nicole Tiebosch, said: “It’s been great fun working with the children on their project – its involved researching, designing, creating and programming all while working as a team. It’s so important to get young children thinking about and involved in STEM subjects and FIRST
LEGO League Jr is a perfect way of doing this.”Lowri Walton, IET FIRST
LEGO League Jr. Programme Manager, added: “FIRST LEGO League Jr. allows young people to experience engineering in action. As well as bringing excitement to STEM subjects, the students get hands-on experience with coding, and designing innovative solutions to real world problems. Developing computer programming, teamwork, problem-solving and communication skills has never been so much fun and gives students an insight into the creative and innovative careers that engineering presents.“There is a great need for young people with STEM skills to fill the next generation of engineering role and we are excited to see such bright young engineering minds taking part in FIRST
LEGO League Jr.”The IET is proud to be the FIRST
LEGO League’s Jr. UK and Ireland operational partner. Supporting the competition is part of our commitment to show young people the benefits of careers within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). For more information about this year’s FIRST LEGO League competition, please visit https://firstlegoleague.theiet.org/junior/index.cfm.