ADEC continues to focus on innovative programs and activities for students as part of its mission to graduate a competent & well equipped workforce of youth
The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) in partnership with the UAE Ministry of Education (MoE), has organised the First Lego League (FLL) competition 2017 under the theme “Animal Allies” – where a total number of 178 ADEC students from 19 different teams participated in the project.
Different public school students from across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, aged 9 to 16, took part in identifying a problem through thinking about all the different ways that people interact with animals as part of the theme “Animal Allies.”
The young competitors were expected to design an innovative solution that adds value to society by improving something that already exists, while using something that exists in a new way, or inventing something totally new.
The Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) based initiative (FLL) was organised based on three elements, namely the Robot game: focus on Mechanical design, programming and strategy skills; project: focus on research, innovative solutions and personation skills and Core values which focus on inspiration, teamwork and professionalism skills.
The FLL core values include: we are a team; we do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors; we know our coaches and mentors don’t have all the answers, we learn together; we honor the spirit of friendly competition; what we discover is more important than what we win; we share our experiences with others; we display gracious professionalism and cooperation in everything we do and we have fun.
Speaking about the initiative, Dr. Najla Al Naqbi, innovation and e-Learning Program Manager at ADEC’s P-12 explained that the project has helped children discover the fun in science and technology, while inspiring them to participate in similar initiatives in the near future.
“FLL is a worldwide program with teams in approximately 80 countries. We are thrilled that our students took part in this motivational project, since it has helped expose them to mechanical design programs, strategies and innovation, research, innovative solutions, presentation and team work skills, as well as to gracious professionalism standards.”
The e-Learning program expert also added that students were given the opportunity to apply the principals of mathematics and physics, while getting engaged with the community as well as developing real life skills.
Throughout the project, a group of judges for each section of the challenge were available, including teachers, university professors, parents, university students and team members.
“The whole event was fun and educational for all those concerned. Students were given 2:30 minutes to get the largest possible number of tasks done and only two members in a team had the right to operate and display their robot on the table. This helped expose students to pivotal traits such as problem identification, sources of information, problem analysis, reviewing existing solutions; in addition to team work solutions, innovation, implementation and presentation effectiveness that was not allowed to exceed four to five minutes, creativity and sharing,” concluded Dr. Al Naqbi.
– ADEC Media
