Free Early Years activity: Directionality

In this activity children aged between 3 and 5 will learn about directionality, order and position of objects such as up, down, in front and behind. They will sort, classify and serialise objects using attributes such as colour, shape or size.

The new LEGO® DUPLO® Playground Set is the recommended resource to use with this activity, but you could use any DUPLO base boards, bricks and people you have available.

Students are asked to form a line and then say who is in front of them and who is behind. Then place red, yellow, green, orange, brown and blue bricks on a large building plate and show them to the students. Ask students which colour brick is above, below, next to (and so forth) different bricks.

Students are then asked to create a scene in a playground with the DUPLO bricks. Then they are asked to explain where elements are located in relation to each other using the words before, behind, beneath, in front and so forth. They are then asked to carry out other tasks, such as comparing the height of the elements in the playground.

This 30-minute-long lesson plan covering literacy and numeracy topics, is aimed at students aged 3 to 5. You can download the lesson plan by clicking on the images at the bottom of this page.

LEGO DUPLO resources can help meet Learning Values such as literacy, numeracy, knowledge and self-expression. For more information and resources, visit the LEGO Education website.

 

Find out more about the new robot in class

Are you keen to find out more about LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education EV3? Then take a look at the new films highlighting the special features of the platform.

Announced in January, the EV3 platform is the third generation of LEGO® Education robotics technology, offering students the chance to build and program a fully functioning robot in just 45 minutes.

In these short ‘Quick Tips’ films LEGO Education Technical Support expert Tim Lankford will help you discover more about the EV3′s Colour Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Intelligent Brick, Infrared Sensor and Beacon, Large Servo Motor, Medium Servo Motor, Touch Sensor and Ultrasonic Sensor.

LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 is a full teaching solution developed with educators to actively engage students in a number of key curriculum areas such as computer science, science, technology, engineering and maths correlated to national standards.

The EV3 platform includes customisable curriculum and digital workbooks; a hardware platform based on real-world robotics technology for engaging, hands-on activities; an intuitive software platform consisting of both programming and data-logging interface including 48 step-by-step tutorials.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 Core Set comes with the EV3 Brick, rechargeable battery, sensors, motors, large brick selection, a new ball wheel, and building instructions.

Also available is the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 Expansion Set, which enables students to build larger-scale, more complex robots. For easy classroom management, both the base education set and the expansion set have storage bins and sorting trays.

For information on how to implement LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 in your school, visit www.LEGOeducation.com/MINDSTORMS

What’s new in the world of LEGO® Education UK?

Here’s a round-up of what’s been happening in the world of LEGO® Education UK for everyone who’s been too busy to check out our blog on week days.

If you’re looking for some ingenious ways to spark creative communication in the classroom, then LEGO Education BuildToExpress could help. Take a look at some of the ways teachers around the UK have been using this resource and download a free Challenge Card to give you a head start. Find out more here.

Students in Wales have been getting to grips with robotics thanks to Technocamps, a European-backed initiative spearheaded by Swansea University in partnership with Aberystwyth, Bangor and Glamorgan Universities. To-date the project has engaged with more than 4,000 students through a variety of workshops from basic programming to robotics. Find out more here.

Do your pupils have what it takes to save the world? Then why not take on the XPRIZE After Earth Challenge and find out? The competition, open to students aged between 13 and 17, involves making a film about community green initiatives and describing the mission they would design to send an unmanned rover to explore a potential site for humanity’s next settlement. Find out more here.

Teachers and children from two UK schools have been sharing their experiences of LEGO Education Innovation Studios in a new film. The studios provide a unique ‘hands-on, minds-on’ learning environment in which to teach STEM subjects. Find out more here.

Finally, if you’re just too lazy to get off the sofa when you want to change the disc in your DVD player, then there’s an amazing LEGO® MINDSTORMS® invention which is perfect for you. The ingenious device, called The Carousel, is made from around 3,000 parts, and was created to change XBox 360 discs. Find out more here.

Have a good weekend!

Innovation studios engage pupils in STEM learning

Teachers and children from two UK schools have been sharing their experiences of LEGO® Education resources in a new film. 

The film will be shown to 400 head teachers at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Head Teachers this weekend in Birmingham. To watch the film, click here.

LEGO® Education Innovation Studios at two Warwickshire schools – English Martyrs Catholic Primary School and Henley-in-Arden School – are featured in the film. The studios provide a unique ‘hands-on, minds-on’ learning environment in which to teach STEM subjects.

For more about LEGO Education Innovation Studios visit our website.

Inspiring the next generation of robotics experts

More than 400 youngsters from across Wales are getting hands-on with robotics in a series of free workshops and clubs, thanks to Technocamps.

The Technocamps team offers Technoclubs and workshops on computing and STEM-related topics to 11 to 19-year-olds in schools and colleges around the country.

The project includes workshops using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education resources, in which students are given the opportunity to learn how to program their own robots.

Stewart Powell, Workshop Developer for the Technocamps project based at Swansea University, has been running a number of successful workshops with pupils from the Swansea area.

He said: “Pupils have thoroughly enjoyed working with the LEGO MINDSTORMS kits and thrived at the chance to create and program different robots to complete a variety of different challenges.”

In addition to the workshops, around 40 schools from across Wales are currently working on their LEGO MINDSTORMS projects for the Robotics of the Future competition due to be held at the Big Bang Cymru at the University of Glamorgan on July 3. The competition was recently featured on BBC Wales Today.

Built on the success of last year’s event, the day will see almost 250 pupils showcasing their projects and competing against each other in a bid to become the Robotics of the Future champions.

The Technocamps project is a European-funded initiative led by Swansea University in partnership with Aberystwyth, Bangor and Glamorgan Universities. To-date the project has engaged with more than 4,000 students through a variety of workshops from basic programming to robotics.

For more on Technocamps and the resources it can offer your school, visit the Technocamps website and to find out more about LEGO MINDSTORMS Education visit the LEGO Education UK website.

Introducing The Carousel: a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® disc changer

Take a look at this amazing disc changer made using LEGO® MINDSTORMS®.

The ingenious device, made from around 3,000 parts, was created by a LEGO® fan called zwenkka to change XBox 360 discs. You can see a video of The Carousel in action on YouTube by clicking here or for more information visit Palikkatakomo.org, a Finnish LEGO hobbyist forum.

The changer which uses three NXTs is controlled via Bluetooth and a pneumatic system is used to operate the claws. The disc is selected by sending a message (between one and 32) to the changer. The changer then picks up the required disc from the spinning shelf which can hold up to 32 discs.

Seven NXT servos, an RC motor, a light sensor and two colour sensors were used in the device which takes about 42 seconds to change a disc.

Have you and your class made a brilliant creation using LEGO MINDSTORMS? Why not tell us about it and inspire other students!

For more on MINDSTORMS Education and EV3, the next generation of robotics for the classroom, visit the LEGO Education website.

Join the XPRIZE After Earth Challenge and help save Mankind!

Do your students have what it takes to save Mankind? Why not join the XPRIZE After Earth Challenge and find out?

The competition open to students aged between 13 and 17 (with an adult captain) has been launched to coincide with the release of the science-fiction film After Earth, in which humans are forced to evacuate Earth and colonise another planet.

In the first phase of the challenge, teams have to imagine themselves to be a Ranger cadet, exploring the relationship between survival and sustainability while completing a mission to send an unmanned rover to explore Nova Prime, the human race’s new home in After Earth. 

The teams have to make a two-minute video discussing how they promote environmental sustainability in their communities and describing the mission they would design to send an unmanned rover to explore a potential site for humanity’s next settlement. They then have to upload their video to http://xprizeafterearth.com, share their video and encourage friends and family to vote for it!

The top ten teams will receive a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® kit to use for their mission and an HD Sony Handycam to document their experience in phase two. The grand prize winner will picked by judges based on their work in this second phase, and will be featured on the US Blu-ray release of After Earth. 

Registration for phase one is now open and videos have to be submitted by June 7.  

For more information about the competition organised by Sony Pictures Entertainment and  Overbrook Entertainment along with XPRIZE, check out this YouTube video or visit the website.

•  

Bright ideas for creative communication

There’s a host of bright ideas on the LEGO® Education UK website to encourage creative expression and communication in the classroom.

Take a look at the free downloadable Challenge Card for use with LEGO® Education BuildToExpress. This Challenge Card highlights how this resource can be used to explore the complex concept of Democracy. Use this Challenge Card as a template and create other cards of your own, exploring concepts such as community or situations such as natural disasters.

BuildToExpress is a flexible tool for learning, created to support subjects across the curriculum and it can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the students in relation to any topic that you are teaching.

Take a look at some of the activities already created by teachers using BuildToExpress. Claire Prud’homme, Director of Learning for Psychology at Smestow School in Wolverhampton used the resource to teach Ethics to A-level students, you can read more here.

Claire Osbourne, the Senior Advisory Teacher for Behaviour, Social and Emotional Difficulties for the Learning and Behaviour Team at Telford and Wrekin Council has been using the resource to help youngsters talk about their feelings. Read more here.

And Becky Cadman, Deputy Head from Barry Island Primary School in Wales has been using BuildToExpress to build storytelling skills. Read more here.

To see BuildToExpress in action, watch this YouTube video in which Logan uses the resource to discuss his response to a poem.

For more about BuildToExpress, visit the website.

What’s new in the world of LEGO® Education?

This week we’ve been celebrating the success of a robotics team from Bath who scooped the top award at the FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival in the United States.

Untitled 1, a team of seven students aged between 11 and 15, beat more than 21,000 teams around the world and won the Champion’s Award at the festival – the first team from the UK ever to do so. You can read more about this amazing team and their LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education robot called The Beast, here.

This week we also brought you a free Maths lesson plan for pupils in Year 3 working with odd and even numbers and equations, using LEGO Education WeDo. Find out more about the activity here. You can also find out more about a Maths activity called Diameter Difference using the WeDo dancing birds here.

Don’t forget that there is lots to watch on the  LEGO Education UK YouTube channel, including a film of the new LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 Robot Arm in action. You can also see a film highlighting some of the features of the EV3 platform, alongside one of the EV3′s lead designers Lee Magpili,  talking about Gyro Boy and EVan – both created using LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3.

We recently reported on a unique social networking experiment in which students around the world worked together to solve engineering projects.The online learning program, called Dr. E’s Challenges was the brainchild of engineering experts from the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO)  at Tufts University in the US. The aim was to encourage more students to become involved in engineering before the age of 18. Find out more about the challenges here.

Picture: Langton Lions

Finally we want to wish good luck to Langton Lions, a team of schoolboys from Kent. They’ll be representing the UK at the FIRST LEGO League Open European Championships in Germany next week. Find out more about them here and we’ll bring you the results of the competition at the end of next week!

 

UK robotics team on the way to Germany

A team of schoolboys from Kent are gearing up for the challenge of a lifetime at the FIRST® LEGO® League Open European Championship in Germany. 

The Langton Lions from Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury were selected to represent the UK after competing in the National FLL Final at Loughborough University in January.

The five-strong team, all aged 13 or 14, will compete against 53 teams from 35 countries in the four-day event in Paderborn starting on Tuesday evening. In that time they will present their project aimed at improving the quality of life for elderly people – a daily dispensing medicine box – as well as programming their LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education robot to complete a set of missions on an obstacle course.

Picture courtesy of Langton Lions

James Meakin, Carlos Purchase-Galarza, Tom Roblin, Ross Price and Ollie English make up the team – along with their LEGO MINDSTORMS Education robot UniBot, a robot they have worked on for around 500 hours so far.

Carlos said: “The UniBot was conceived back in December 2011. It’s basically the NXT brick and the three servos configured as a drop-in unit to power various tools. It’s enabled us to be very flexible in our design progression by allowing us to completely change mission solutions in a modular manner. We can make changes in isolation thus not disturbing other mission solutions in the process.

“This has taken its toll on our time though; because it is so flexible, the possibilities are endless and we have gone through three generations of tools this year to finally get to the stage we are now. We have devoted in excess of 500 hours to the robot game so far.”

In respect of the other major component of the competition, James says: “The team’s project is based on an ingenious idea which we identified when we were researching the project we completed in the Nationals. It comprises a daily dispensing medicine box; a device enabling older people to store and manage their medication which is easy for the pharmacist to refill and allows the GP to change the dose remotely.”

Tom adds: “We are really excited about presenting this new idea in Paderborn which I think has far reaching and positive implications for the elderly everywhere – not just in the UK.”

Since the UK final in January, the team have been busy raising £5,000 in sponsorship from businesses to enable them to compete in the European event, and they’re now very excited about the trip.

Ross says: “I thought that reaching the Nationals was the ultimate but to go to Germany is incredible and to be the only team from UK, up against over 50 other teams from all over the world is awesome.  What an honour to be representing the UK.”

Ollie summarises the core values of the team: “FIRST LEGO League isn’t just about winning for the Langton Lions (although that is our ultimate aim). There are plenty of other factors that are significant such as teamwork, friendship, experience and learning.  After we leave on Tuesday,  we are going to have fun and meet lots of new people from many different countries, and whether we come back with the cup or not, we’ll remember the experience for the rest of our lives.”

Last weekend Untitled 1, the UK national FLL champions from Bath, won the Champion’s Award at the FLL World Festival in the United States. You can read more about their triumph here.

To find out more about the FLL competition in the UK, take a look at this YouTube video made by the UK organisers, The Institution of Engineering and Technology or visit the website.