Here’s the latest news from LEGO® Education

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.

We caught up with the Langton Lions, a team of schoolboys from Kent who represented the UK at the FIRST® LEGO® League Open European Championship in Germany. You can find out about their experience in international competition here.

Untitled1 – a team from Bath – won the Champions Award at the FLL World Festival this year. You can see their robot, The Beast, in action in this brilliant video. You will be amazed at what their robot can do! And why not sign up for the 2013/2014 FLL competition? You can find out more here.

The team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, who developed the hugely popular Scratch free programming environment for children, have brought out a new version – Scratch 2.0 and the Scratch Ed team at Harvard have launched an online creative computing workshop open to anyone interested in finding out more. Read more here.

There are lots of bright ideas for playful learning on our website and our blog. Why not try out this idea to help young children learn about directionality using some fun in the playground and LEGO DUPLO®? Find out more here.

And we recently shared a lesson plan using LEGO Education WeDo sets in Maths lessons to learn about adding and subtracting 10s and 100s with the help of the drumming monkey.You can download the lesson plan here.

Finally if you haven’t had the chance yet, take a look at the helpful videos online explaining the special features of the new LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3. Just click here to find out more.

Have fun!

LEGO® Bricks in Space: GyroBot

In this LEGO® Bricks in Space lesson, students will work with LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education NXT to discover the effects of microgravity on a gyroscope.

Watch STEM integration come to life in your classroom, as learners explore scientific laws dealing with kinesthetic energy, use technology and engineering skills to develop and program a working GyroBot, and use maths and language skills to adequately communicate their findings.

Students will be asked to program their GyroBot to experiment with light, ultrasonic, rotation and touch sensors, and record their findings on the worksheet supplied.

In the accompanying video, Kevin Ford, Commander of Expedition 34 on board the International Space Station, demonstrates how the same GyroBot reacts in microgravity and explains how gyroscopes are used on the ISS and why they are so important.

View the video above and download teacher notes, student worksheets and building instructions from LEGOspace.com

 

Could you take on the might of NATURE’S FURY℠?

Have you got what it takes to become a robotics champion and help the world master natural disasters? Why not sign up for the new FIRST® LEGO® League competition and find out!

Registration is now open for the 2013/2014 FLL UK competition and the global challenge will be released on August 28. This year it’s all about NATURE’S FURY℠.

The FLL is part of an international programme created by FIRST®, a US-based charity, in partnership with the LEGO® Group. It brings together teams of children to tackle a real world engineering challenge.

In this year’s competition more than 200,000 children aged between 9 to 16 from over 70 countries are expected to explore the awe-inspiring storms, quakes, waves and more that we call natural disasters. Teams will discover what can be done when intense natural events meet the places in which people live, work and play.

In the FLL competition teams have to build test, and program an autonomous LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education robot to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game. They are also challenged to choose and solve a real-­world problem in the Project. Teams are judged on their ability to build and program the robot, their presentation and research skills, and how well they cooperate with each other and their fellow competitors.

Teams from around the UK will compete against each other in regional heats and the winners will meet in the UK national finals early next year. The winning team from the UK final will be invited to the FLL World Festival in the United States. The 2012/2013 UK winners, Untitled1 from Bath, went on to win the Champion’s Award at the World Festival. You can see their amazing robot, called The Beast, in action in this YouTube film.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is the operating partner of the UK-leg of the competition. You can find out more about the competition and registration by visiting
http://www.firstlegoleague.co.uk
.

Robotics team make friends around the world

The Langton Lions have been sharing their experiences at the FIRST® LEGO® League Open European Championship in Germany. 

The team of five from Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury represented the UK at the event earlier this month, competing against 56 teams from 34 countries.

During the four-day event in Paderborn they presented 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.

And the team – James Meakin, Carlos Purchase-Galarza, Tom Roblin, Ross Price and Ollie English – along with their LEGO MINDSTORMS Education robot UniBot, reached the quarter finals of the competition and were awarded second place in the Strategy and Innovation Award category. The Champions’ Award went to the team ApoioBot from Brazil.

In the Quarter Finals the robot was having its best round and was on target for a very high score – possibly beating the World Record – before going wrong.

Team member Carlos said: “I am very disappointed that the robot did not achieve what we knew it could but the experience of just being at such an amazing competition is unbelievable – I will never forget it.”

Team mate Tom added: “The best thing was meeting and talking with children from other countries and cultures. My entire FIRST LEGO League experience has taught me that it’s not all about winning, it’s about the enjoyment. I also learnt a lot about working in a team and playing to each other’s strengths.”

Fellow team member James said: “I’ve made loads of new friends in Australia, Lebanon, Israel and Brazil, among other places, and we’ve already been in contact since the championships.”

And one of the team mentors said: “This has been an incredible journey for all the boys.  You simply cannot experience anything like this anywhere and I hope that they get the chance to experience it again.”

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.

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!

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.

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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!