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UCC hosts Munster Finals of LEGO League
Students and teachers from schools across Munster gathered in University College Cork (UCC) on Saturday, 27 January for the Cork region Finals of the FIRST® LEGO® League.
The FIRST® LEGO® League is a major global programme that introduces science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to secondary school children through fun, hands-on learning. The competition challenges young people to design, build, and programme robots using LEGO. First LEGO League offers a fun way to engage STEM, weaving soft skills into real world scenario's that require coding, researching and presentations across four judging criteria.
Students were judged across four areas, presentation on an Innovation Project, discussing their Robot Design and Strategy, performance at the Robot Game and Core Values. The FIRST® LEGO® League is a collaboration between LearnIT, the UCC School of Engineering and Engineers without Borders Student Society, with the direct support from Qualcomm.
In Ireland, the League is organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in partnership with LearnIT and supported by Science Foundation Ireland. Qualcomm is the main sponsor of the UCC event.
UCC has also created an award-winning academic module in Electrical and Electronic Engineering based on the competition, which is now offered to their 1st year engineering students.
Emanuel Popovici, School of Engineering and Architecture, commented:
“Congratulations to the winners and all the participants. The enthusiasm and talent displayed by these students today captivated us all. They are the budding engineers and STEM leaders of tomorrow who will solve society’s biggest challenges. We are grateful to Qualcomm for their sponsorship, support and providing staff volunteers, as well as LearnIT and Engineers without Borders Society for their efforts in organising this fantastic event and hands-on workshops "
“As an international science and technology challenge, it’s great to see Cork being represented in the First LEGO League. The competition is a great way to engage young people in problem solving, teamwork and really practical science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) applications through LEGO,” said Mervyn Horgan of Learn It Cork.
Paul Kelleher, VP of Engineering at Qualcomm also commented:
“First Lego League is one of the best STEM events in the calendar. It shows the continuous support from UCC and Qualcomm to this event. It was a great day for the schools who attended, the pupils, the teachers, LearnIT team and the volunteers”