First Lego League Lego
Using Spike Essential kits, purchased with Change X funding, we had 10 groups from 2 classes take part in this year’s First Lego League Superpowered Challenge. The children learned all about energy, especially sustainable energy they then designed, built and coded their own environmentally sustainable consumption models. On the day of the Lego Showcase Niamh from LearnIt visited the school and the children presented their projects to their parents. It was great fun and a great experience for all!!

Session 4 in Cargo Connect compete ✅ the children first looked at Google Maps to identify different places in our locality that requires cargo deliveries. They then looked at roads/ports that may be used. After the that, the children got stuck in to building their car and coding it. They loved trying to figure out the best ways to get the car from one point on the map to the sorting centre. Was a fantastic lesson 😄

With the funding we received from Change X we were able to purchase Lego for our school. Ms. Dowd's 6th class was chosen to take part in this project. The 24 children in Ms. Dowd's class have been working in five groups groups. They have been started the First Lego League lessons and have completed sessions 1-3. The children are thoroughly enjoying the lessons and coding with the Lego. This Lego will continue to be used in our school every year and it will give many classes the chance to build and code with Lego.

The children have been working hard with the Cargo Connect programme. They are loving coding and building different types of Lego. Session 1-3 is now complete!

Ms. Dowd's class are learning how to build and code with the Lego. It is lots of fun!

The Lego has arrived and Ms. Dowd and her class are very excited to get started!

We had our first team meeting on Friday November 19th.
As all of the team were keen to be the first to complete the First Lego League Challenge we had a draw to choose the class to be involved. Ms. Dowd's class were chosen.
Action Plan:
1. Purchase First Lego League Challenge Cargo Connect Class pack from First Lego League Ireland €365.00 ( fll.learnit.ie )
2. Purchase Lego Education SPIKE Prime Set X5 @ €404.95 each Total €2,024.75 +€6.50 shipping from shop.creative-hut.ie
The total cost of setting up the First Lego League will amount to €2,395.50. We will use the seed funding for this and the principal has agreed that the school will pay the rest and be reimbursed when the remainder of the money is released.
3. The IT post holder will have the free Lego software downloaded onto the school Chromebooks.
4. Ms. Niamh Dowd's class will work in 5 teams of 5 students.
5. Ms. Niamh Dowd will guide the students through the lessons in the team meeting guide.
6. The teams will work together under the guidance of Ms. Niamh Dowd to build and code their robots.
7. When the 12 lessons have been completed there will be a friendly in-class tournament. We will share video footage and photos of this with the wider school community to promote STEM education in the school.
COVID-19 Safety Plan
In compliance with COVID-19 government guidelines the 5 class groups or 'pods' will be at least 1 metre distance apart. The sharing of materials between pods will be avoided. Hands will be washed or sanitized before and after using the Chromebooks. The Chromebooks will also be sanitized before and after use.
Benefits
We are certain that the students and the wider school community will benefit greatly from this initiative. It will improve the students' communication and teamwork skills. It will help the students to develop valuable problem solving, critical thinking and creativity skills. Until three years ago we were a junior school and so have only been teaching the senior classes for the last three years. We are very keen to explore exciting ways of developing the children's and teachers' coding skills and we feel that this would be a great opportunity to do so. Maybe most importantly of all, this project will be great fun for all of those involved.