Students are using LEGO and robotics to solve real-world problems.
FIRST LEGO League teamed with Amazon to tackle challenges involving cargo with a competition held at Rothesay Netherwood School in April.
Julie Letkeman is a homeschool teacher in the Kennebecasis Valley and entered a team in the virtual component of the competition.
Teams were challenged to come up with an idea on how to change something about how cargo is moved.
The kids then come up with a problem, research it, and then develop and design a solution.
Letkeman said their team decided to tackle the issues that delivery drivers face like falls, dog bites, and porch pirates.
The students did research, chatted with airspace and drone specialists, and designed a prototype drone, that the driver could launch safely from their truck, to deliver packages.
In one aspect of the competition, the students had to design, build, and code a robot to interact with a plane.
“[They] have it travel to the airplane, lift its arms so it can pull down a lever so that it can unload the plane cargo, back up and go back to base and then go out and do another mission,” Letkeman said.
She said interest is growing in the program.
“A couple of years ago there were only a couple of teams in New Brunswick. This year it seems like there were five or six first-year teams from school throughout New Brunswick,” Letkeman said.
Letkeman would love to see robotics get more attention since STEM learning — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — has become so important in today’s world.
