Last Saturday a team of eight students from the Primary School participated in the First Lego League competition, being held for the first time here on the Sunshine Coast. First Lego League combines the skills of robotics with a science based theme, for the purpose of solving set of challenges. It comes with innovative solutions to real world problems and caters for students aged from nine to sixteen years old.

We want to congratulate our young team for their efforts this year, learning lots of new skills and getting everything ready for the big day. Year 6 was represented by Lachlan McGilvray, Jonas Stevenson and Mattai Elimelech, Year 5 by Sam Viney, Oscar Hinds and Sebastian Catton, Year 4 by Euan Caldwell, and from Year 3 we had Jarrett Coulson.

Prior to the competition day, the team had two months to prepare for the three main judging segments. These included the robot design and performance, their Project presentation, and how they conducted themselves using the First Core Values. We did not win any of the very cool Lego trophies this year, however, we are very proud to have achieved so much in our first year and are ready to improve on our showing this year.

First Lego League has been sponsored in Australia by Macquarie University since 2006. It has grown rapidly and now has over 500 teams competing in Australia. As a global competition, there are about 80 countries and over 23,000 teams now involved. The aim of the program is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, through engagement with exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills. The aim is to inspire innovation and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Mark Bowman