FIRST LEGO League SUPERPOWERED regional tournament Aims to Find Solutions to Sourcing ‘Green’ Energy

LEGO Robots designed and built by teams of young engineers from across Leinster are battling it out at this year’s FIRST LEGO League SUPERPOWERED regional tournament.

A total of 29 teams are competing across three days in the DCU Institute of Education, culminating in the final on Saturday.

Students participating are from 5th class to transition year, ranging from 11-16 years of age.

This year’s ‘SUPERPOWERED’ challenge will see young people discover the issues we face with the journey of energy.

The challenge will delve into all aspects of the sourcing of energy, its generation, storage, distribution, and consumption, with a particular focus on green energy sources, i.e., renewable, and sustainable energy.

Pupils from St Finians College Swords Liam Savage(14),Patrick Keson (14),Roman Rekruchenko,(14) and Ashin Joby(14) competing with their Robot during the First LEGO League Leinster Regional Tournament in St Pats Campus Drumcondra.
Pic Kyran O’Brien /DCU Communications Dept .

This year’s theme, SUPERPOWERED, challenges teams to reimagine the future of sustainable energy and power their ideas forward.

From the machines that move us to the food that sustains us, to the wireless technologies that connect us, energy plays an essential role in keeping our world running.

This year’s energy theme addresses global challenges related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 — focused on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.

FIRST LEGO League is more than just a robotics competition as Ross Maguire of Learnit says; “It brings together the concepts of cooperation and competition. It is the idea that by working together, we all win. FIRST LEGO League is a platform for students to discover the world of STEM and collaborate on real-world problems, and in this instance the sourcing of green energy. These fantastic young people are taking the first steps to become tomorrow’s innovators, creators, and problem-solvers. Today is not about building robots, it is about robots building people.”

Pupils from St Finians College Swords Liam Savage(14),Patrick Keson (14),Roman Rekruchenko,(14) and Ashin Joby(14) competing with their Robot during the First LEGO League Leinster Regional Tournament in St Pats Campus Drumcondra.
Pic Kyran O’Brien /DCU Communications Dept .

Over 120 teams will take part in FIRST LEGO League Challenge this year, with nine regional tournaments taking place across the country. The top teams from each tournament will qualify for a place at the All-Ireland Finals taking place in Dublin in late March. FIRST LEGO League SUPERPOWERED science and technology challenge, tasks teams to build a robot to tackle a series of missions and create an innovative solution to a real-world problem. This encourages children to demonstrate their skills in robotics, computer programming, teamwork, research, problem solving and communication.

Professor Deirdre Butler, DCU Institute of Education LEGO Education Innovation Studio said: “The opportunity to be centrally involved in this initiative contributes to our goal of creating a learning hub that will help DCU Institute of Education student teachers and Irish schools develop an innovative approach to designing learning environments. This ignites a passion for learning STEM concepts and skills from early childhood education right through to third level. By adopting LEGO’s playful learning tools, with a ‘Hands on, Minds on, Hearts on’ mindset, in a supportive learning environment, this encourages young people to be leaders and innovators into the future.”

Lucy Owen, IET Education Manager, says “FIRST LEGO League allows young people to experience engineering in action. There is a great need for young people with STEM skills to fill the next generation of global engineering roles, and we are always excited to see so many bright young engineering minds in development.”

Supported by the SFI Discover Programme, the initiative is organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in partnership with Irish delivery partner, Learnit. FIRST LEGO League participation has grown by 70% over the last three years in Ireland. Learnit partners with the DCU Institute of Education and its LEGO Education Innovation Studio to increase STEM awareness in young people and the FIRST LEGO League is a keyway to do this. Working with LEGO Education materials can inspire children to explore technology and encourage the world’s future creators into meaningful and challenging STEM careers.