Team LegoGoa,
on its first attempt, bagged the ‘Most Inspirational Team’ Team Work-Core Values Award at the
First Lego League (FLL), Robotics (Western Zone) Championship held in Mumbai
and was listed in the top ten teams.
Team LegoGoa was the smallest team, comprising only three
students: Nine-year-old Sai Pranav Gandhi, a Std 3 student of Sharada Mandir
School, Miramar; Swayam Kakodkar, 10, a Std 5 student of Manovikas English
Medium School, Margao; and Eric Siqueira, 13 years, a Std 8 student of Sharada
Mandir School.
Team LegoGoa, a team with no formal robotics coaching, left a
lasting impression on the judges and the organisers with their positive
approach, and team spirit. The team was mentored by their parents, who had no
prior academic training in robotics, and their 16-year-old friend Eric
Fernandes, a first year student from Electronics and Instrumentation
Engineering, Government Polytechnic, Panjim.
The FLL is designed
as a sport for the mind and is an alliance between FIRST (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology) and the LEGO group. The Challenge has
three parts: Robot Game, Project work and Core Values. Every year, FLL releases
a Challenge, which is based on a real-world scientific topic. This year the
challenge was on the theme ‘Into Orbit’.
LegoGoa also
presented a project on growing food for space, titled ‘Andromeadow, Growing
Microgreens in space’. Experiments were done on growing Amaranthus (tambdi
bhaji) and mustard, which would take care of the nutritional deficiencies in
astronauts as well as provide them with fresh vegetables. The project book was
also presented to the Director of Agriculture.
“LegoGoa is a club
run by amateurs and is striving to establish LEGO robotics in Goa. LEGO
robotics is the biggest robotics platform for kids in the world and kids
participating in these events learn immensely about STEM (Science, Engineering,
Technology and Mathematics) in a playful manner. LEGO robotics is still nascent
in Goa, hence LegoGoa has been conducting workshops for the past 3 years,”
explained the team members.
There are two major
LEGO robotics events in a year i.e., World Robot Olympiad in the first half of
the year and First Lego League in the second half of the year. For both the
events, the participating teams have to participate in the regional events to
qualify for the National and only the top two National teams qualify for the
International events.
LegoGoa is now
preparing teams for the forthcoming World Robot Olympiad (WRO) regionals to be
held in July/August and the theme for the competition is Smart Cities.
“This is run by
passion and that is why we do not charge fees for mentoring the teams. It’s a
great learning tool and my son has leapfrogged immensely with this exposure.
Hence we have made it our mission to reach out to maximum kids in Goa and now
parents of other kids are involved in the process,” said the team LegoGoa
members, when asked to comment about the growing response they have received
across the state.
Team
LegoGoa is based in Panjim and now CIBA Verna is also part of this endeavour.