All the excitement of the greatest robot competition arrives at Citilab with the First Lego League
On January 24 Citilab—Cornellà will be hosting a qualifying round of the First Lego League, a spectacular competition of programmable robots built with pieces of Lego MindStormsTM. During the day, 16 teams of youngsters between 10 and 16 will participate in this ambitious scientific and technological project in which they have to think like engineers and scientists to construct a global action plan for the environment.
Founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, the objective of the FLL. Is to stimulate the interest of young people in science and technology, by promoting creativity, innovation and team work. The numbers speak for themselves: more than 500 classifying rounds, 30,000 volunteers, more than 9000 teams. More than 100,000 boys and girls from 38 countries took part in last year’s competition.
Science and technology, a double competition
The tournament, sponsored by GMV, presents the teams with two challenges:
Climate connections
A scientific challenge in which the participants must investigate how the climate affects the community, identify a problem which affects the area and work out a solution. Lastly, they must share the results of the investigation and the solution with everybody else.
Robot competition
In an exciting test against the clock, the teams have approximately 5 minutes to pass various tests on — from protecting a house against flooding by constructing dikes or burying carbon dioxide particles — on a stage built from pieces of Lego. A large part of the interest is in the design and programming of the robot, given that each model is unique.
Prizes are given in different categories, such as the winner of robot design, prize for the best scientific presentation or the best team work up to naming the Overall Champion of the qualifying phase for the Spanish championship for 2009.
The FFL in Spain and the world
This is the third time that the competition has taken place in Spain and this year consists of six qualifying rounds involving 128 teams. The participating centres are:
PCYTA- Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Albacete
- Citilab- Cornellà de Llobregat
- CEI-NODUS- Centro de Empresas e Innovación de Lugo
- CEIN- Centro Europeo de Empresas e Innovación de Navarra
- Fundación Scientia- Barcelona
- Fundación Scientia- Madrid
The competition will end in Copenhagen, Denmark, from May 1st-3rd at the the Open European Championship.
Citilab, first MindStorms Robotics Centre in Spain
On 23 November 2008, coinciding with the first anniversary of Citilab, the centre put into operation the first permanent site of Lego robots for kids in Spain. The methodology of these workshops is one part of the project of social innovation of Citilab which has collaborative games as a nucleus.
Lego MindStorms TM is a game of programmable robotics for children made by the Lego® company, which integrates basic elements of robotics theory such as the joining of pieces and the programming of interactive actions.
