Kenyan Learners Sweat It Out At First Lego League Kenyan Finals
The International School of Kenya and the Children’s Home Garden School will represent Kenya in the International Lego League in Texas in April 2024. The two schools teamed up to form a team that outperformed their counterparts in the local national league held at the Woodcreek school in Nairobi this weekend.
The competition saw schools from across the country compete in project presentations, robotics and games all geared at pushing their creativity to the limit with each step drawing in marks from the judges. The EE’s as they called themselves emerged overall winners.
Ochieng’ Simbira a student from the international school of Kenya while heaping praise on his teammates indicated that they felt the position was well deserved adding that they were going to practice hard and bring the trophy back home in April.
‘’I am happy that we got a lot of points in the robot design and I would like to give my team thanks for helping us today ‘’. Ochieng’ added.
The EE’s coach and an educator at the International School of Kenya Anthony Mugithuri while praising his team for the stellar performance in the competition, noted that the learners participating benefited heavily in other areas important in their overall development.
‘’The FLL has four different categories other than the robotics which people see as the fun part. Its core values are inclusivity, discovery and innovation. These are some of the things you were to impart on your students. These skills are in line with 21st century needs and schools vision and incorporating learners with the community.’’ said Mr Mugithuri.
He promised to prepare the students well for the international competition. In his words; ‘it is coming home.’
Julius Kariuki, a judge on the panel commended the teams for the beautiful showcase concluding that a proper adoption of the talent presented by the kids in CBC will propel the local education sector to international standards in the learning of STEM.
"It is upon us to bring the best in terms of innovation, capacity and creativity and in the near future see some of the solutions that have been presented here implemented internationally by people from our home region in Kenya’’. Julius noted.
Stemtrix founder and competition director Christine Acheing’ expressed her satisfaction with the quality of work that was on display at the first Lego League challenge in Kenya further reiterating the immense benefits that the learners stood to gain by participating. She has called on local schools in the country to register in big numbers in the competition and as well as adopt robotics in their CBC curriculum.
‘’We launched the masterpiece in October last year and today we were actualizing the entire event bringing together kids to showcase their projects and do presentations on what they have been working on throughout the season as well as showcase their robots design and we have seen great feedback coming from the parents, their teachers and coaches. What we have seen here today is magical. We have had the first Lego League tournament for the past six years in Kenya and what came out today was magical .’’Christine explained.
The winning Kenyan team will first travel to Australia for the open championships before clearing their tour in Texas for the world tournament.
