First Lego League Challenge at TU Ilmenau: Young people develop robots

To the particles, get set, go! The First Lego League Challenge - a research and robotics competition for 9 to 16-year-old students from Germany, Austria and Switzerland (D-A-CH) - kicked off at TU Ilmenau last Saturday with one of the first regional competitions. Like real engineers, the young people work in teams to design, program and test a fully automated robot and conduct research on a topic of their choice. In Ilmenau, 70 girls and boys from Ilmenau, Sonneberg, Kronach, Erfurt, Jena, Neustadt an der Orla, Zella-Mehlis and Oberweißbach competed against each other in nine teams. In three robot game rounds and a presentation in front of a jury, they demonstrated their research skills and were able to qualify for the next stage of the First Lego League Challenge. At the end of the day, students from the Goethegymnasium in Ilmenau stood at the top of the winners' podium. They presented a robot that is controlled using eye tracking. The aim of this innovative concept is to enable people with paraplegia to draw. Together with the second-placed team, Robobirds, they will travel to the qualifying competition in Regensburg on February 24. The winning team of the First Lego League Challenge will be determined at the big D-A-CH final on April 13/14 in Davos, Switzerland.

The Student Research Centre at TU Ilmenau has been organizing the regional competition of the First Lego League Challenge for three years now. By organizing such competitions, the university aims to awaken and expand young people's interest in STEM subjects and motivate them to study mathematics and science.

An overview of all teams can be found at: evaluation.hands-on-technology.org/de/score/challenge-2023-24-ilmenau

Impressions of the First Lego League Challenge at the TU Ilmenau

TU Ilmenau/Stefan Riehmer

TU Ilmenau/Stefan Riehmer