FIRST® LEGO® League 2023 – 2024
This season is called MASTERPIECE and is to be officially launched on 01 August 2023.
Teams will imagine and innovate new ways to create and communicate art across the globe through STEM.
For more information, contact:
FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge: fllchallenge@theiet.org
FIRST® LEGO® League Explore: fllexplore@theiet.org
FIRST® LEGO® League Discover: FLLDiscover@theiet.org
FIRST® LEGO® League An exciting, hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme, FIRST® LEGO® League engages children and young people in meaningful learning from 4-16 years old.
The three divisions listed below, inspire young people to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding, and design skills through hands on STEM learning and robotics.
FIRST® LEGO® League Discover introduces teams of four 4-6 year olds to the world of STEM through the use of LEGO® Duplo® bricks. Children develop their communication, problem solving and collaboration skills through playful STEM tasks.
Children get the chance to showcase their learning journey at the end of the programme with a Celebration Event, which involves building, a special challenge and talking about what they have learnt with parents and other adults. Their hard work and perseverance are celebrated with a certificate and lots of high fives.
FIRST® LEGO® League Explore rapidly develops teamwork, design, programming and communication skills, but the most important thing is that it is great fun and makes the children feel proud of what they have achieved.
The teams research the annual topic, displaying their ideas on a ‘Show Me’ poster. They build a LEGO® model and program one part to move using LEGO® Education WeDo 2.0 software.
The children showcase their learning at a ‘Festival’ held at one of our partner colleges.
FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge is for young people aged 9 to 16 years, working in teams of up to ten students with a supporting adult coach. Each challenge involves a robot game and a research project.
Students also need to demonstrate the FIRST® LEGO® League core values throughout all their work.
FIRST® LEGO® League Scotland Final
With the support of ESP, colleges across Scotland will run tournaments. Partners from commerce, education and industry will be invited to judge key aspects of the competition. The inaugural Scottish final was held at Perth College UHI on 29 February 2019.
Core Values
Every aspect of the programme requires the consideration of core values. Whilst competing, the teams have to demonstrate core values including innovation, teamwork and inclusion. Friendly competition, being respectful and having a great time are central to what makes FIRST® LEGO® League so special.
Innovation Project
Teams must research the annual theme as detailed in the Challenge Document. After exploring different ideas, they will identify one problem related to the theme, design a solution to solve it, and develop a presentation to communicate how they analysed the problem and how their innovative solution might be implemented.
Robot Design
Teams must explain to the judges how they designed, built and programmed their LEGO® robot to complete the missions in the Robot Game.
Robot Game
Teams design and build a robot using a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® or SPIKE™ Prime kit that they program to autonomously complete a series of missions on a specialised field to score as many points as possible.
The British Science Association runs the CREST Award scheme. It is a nationally recognised accreditation scheme for STEM project work with 40,000 young people in the UK gaining awards each year.
Teams can complete a Discovery CREST Award whilst taking part in FIRST® LEGO® League Explore and those competing in the FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge can complete a Bronze CREST Award. CREST AWARDS
The Engineering Development Trust (EDT) runs the Industrial Cadets Awards. The Industrial Cadets experience includes a structured set of activities that develop employability skills in
young people. Children will receive the Bronze Award for taking part in FIRST® LEGO® League Explore. All team members competing at a regional FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge tournament will automatically receive an EDT Industrial Cadets Silver Award and those teams who qualify for a National Final will receive the EDT Industrial Cadets Gold Award. INDUSTRIAL CADETS
STEM: One Brick at a Time
CDN School College Partnership (SCP) held an event on the 9th of November, 2022. The event demonstrated how colleges are supporting schools with the First Lego League, using the world’s most popular toy to encourage more young people to take an interest in STEM.
View the videos from the event below
Presenter: Wendy Findlay, ESP.
In 2019, the inaugural Scottish First Lego League (FLL) final was held at Perth College UHI. Since then, with the support of ESP, colleges across Scotland have hosted Lego tournaments with judges from commerce, education and industry.
Presenter: Megan Clayton, NSCG.
The LEGO® Education Innovation Studio at Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group (NSCG) is packed full of science, literacy, computing, design technology, engineering and maths related resources, including robotics aimed at developing the creative thinking and practical problem solving skills of tomorrow’s scientists, engineers, innovators and leaders. Watch the session to learn more about how NSCG has developed the Studio, partnering with schools and industry to champion STEM in our area.
Presenter: Jules Wright, Dundee & Angus College.
This session provides an overview of the D&A College partnership approach to supporting FLL (First Lego League) schools. We cover the YSLP (Young STEM Leader Programme) and how it’s embedded into a college course. We examine the impact on students, schools and the College. We’ll also look at available sources of funding to allow wider participation from across the region.
Presenters: Allan Carpenter and Ged Freel, Ayrshire College.
The challenges and undoubted benefits for participants and Ayrshire College of staging a global STEM competition that develops key skills for future careers, including coding, design and research.
Hosted by Digital Xtra Fund, this session was delivered by a LEGO® Education Academy Certified Trainer, John and Sarah Pinkney on how you can use LEGO® Education resources in your setting to achieve deep and impactful learning through a playful, hands-on approach. We were also joined by Wendy Findlay, Programme Manager – STEM at ESP, who talked about the various FIRST® LEGO® League Competitions and how you could get involved.