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DCU Institute of Education gets ready for FIRST LEGO League Leinster Finals
DCU Institute of Education gets ready for FIRST LEGO League Leinster Finals

DCU Institute of Education gets ready for FIRST LEGO League Leinster Finals

Robots designed and built by secondary school students using LEGO will be in action this weekend (Saturday, Jan 26th) at the DCU Institute of Education for the Learnit & DCU FIRST LEGO League Leinster finals.

Twenty-two teams from Leinster schools will gather for the competition which encourages children to think like scientists and engineers and develop practical solutions to real-world issues.

Schools participating in the FIRST LEGO League finals include Belvedere College, St Benildus College, Coláiste Eoin, Wicklow Montessori, Loreto Foxrock, Scoil Eoin Phóil II Naofa, Gaelcholáiste na Mara, Kilcoole Primary School, Rathdown School, the High School Rathgar, St Teresa's P.S. Balbriggan along with five schools from the DCU Access Programme St. Mary’s HFC, Cabra Community College, Grange Community College, Mercy College, Beneavin College and community group City Wise in Tallaght.

In addition two teams from the Irish Girl Guides will also compete as part of a STEM Scholarship programme developed by Learnit and the DCU LEGO Education Innovation Studio.

All of the teams taking part have spent the last four months preparing for the event including designing, building and programming their own automated robot, using LEGO Mindstorms ®. Teams also developed a research project based on identifying a human physical or social problem faced during long-duration space exploration within the Sun’s solar system and devised solutions to combat this.

DCU LEGO Education Innovation Studio (LEIS) works in partnership with Learnit with the aim of increasing STEM awareness in young people. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects). Teams of up to ten students, aged from 11 to 16 years with at least two adult coaches, can participate in the FIRST LEGO Leagues. FIRST is an acronym for ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology’, and the FIRST LEGO League encourages children to think like scientists and engineers, developing practical solutions to real-world issues.

The FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international competition involving students age 11 to 16 from 80 countries. Irish education specialists, Learnit introduced the FIRST LEGO League to schools in Leinster and Munster.