FLL competition @ Kjeller

Last Saturday the local final in the First Lego League was arranged at Akershus University College. My youngest was part of the Team Kebabgeeks that got the fifth place out of ten competing groups. And they were nominated for the prize for best presentation.

The picture shows a panorama of one of the robot challenges, with my team in red. As the competition developed they got really excited, and contrary to my expectation they expressed the desire to participate next year as well. Whether they do or not, I think they have got an experience they will remember the rest of their lives, and maybe influence the path they take later in life.

Salami and tomato on lego

This year's topic for First Lego League is "food factor". This means that the participants shall study food quality issues, find ways to improve it, build lego robots to solve tasks etc. And my youngest kid has drafted me to help his team!

The different tasks in the challenge have not been distributed among the participants yet, but it feels like an adventure. At home we started by locating his brother's Lego Mindstorm set, so that we can practice at home. I even took some parts and build myself a salami and tomato on lego. What a treat!

Part of the challenge is to find some candidate food products for further study. I had hoped to find some fish products that carry information about the catch, the vessel and so on, but that proved more difficult than expected. I found one processed product from Domstein, but it contained too many ingredients compared to the limit in the challenge.

It remains to be seen where the project develops, but I hope for a memorable learning experience for the kids.