The winners of the Debrecen and Budapest regional finals are heading for the national finals.
The ‘Challenge’ category of the competition held online due to the pandemic has created a special challenge for participating students, coaches and even the jury. After a preparation phase of several months, the last two Hungarian regional finals of the FIRST LEGO League competition have been successfully completed.
The regional finals in Debrecen was won by the Agora Robotics team of the local Agora Scientific Experience Center. The runner-up was the Veni Vidi Vici team of the Alternative Secondary School of Economics (AKG) of Budapest, while the third place went to the Atomrobotok team of Szent Miklós Greek Catholic School and Kindergarten of Edelény. The third team also won the special award for the “Best Innovation” and their teacher was selected as “The Best Coach”.
The regional finals in Budapest was won by AKG’s Izidumbu team, followed by Blokkolók, a team of passionate students and their parents. The third place went to the Sapka team of Kempelen Farkas Secondary School. AKG’s team was granted the special awards for the “Best Core Values (Team Spirit)” and the “Best Robot Run”, Kempelen’s team won the award for the “Best Innovation”, while the family team received the award for the “Best Robotic Construction”. The “Best Coach” award went to Zoltán Kovács of Kossuth Lajos Secondary School of Cegléd.
The “Motivation” special award offered by Telenor was won in Debrecen by the Irinyis team of Irinyi Károly Primary School of Esztár, while in Budapest it was won by the LegRobi team of Kecskeméti Reformed Primary School.
Never too early to start
Last weekend was made special not only by the ‘Challenge’ category, but also by the ‘Explore’ category created for students in the lower grades of primary school. This category focused on creativity and teamwork rather than rivalry. The jury was strongly impressed by the children’s own solutions and robot tracks both in Budapest and Debrecen.
It’s never too early to start robotics. This year, the ‘Discover’ category was established outside the official competition to bring the spirit of FFL closer to kindergarten-age children.
The history of this year’s FIRST LEGO League competition in Hungary
For the first time this year, Hungary hosts the local rounds of the FIRST LEGO League competition, a joint initiative by FIRST, one of the world’s largest robotics communities, and leading global building toy manufacturer LEGO. The more than 90 teams registered for the competition from Hungarian schools participated in five regional qualifiers. The two winners of the national finals in Budapest will qualify for the global finals in Greece to be attended by the best teams of 110 countries.
At the FIRST LEGO League competitions, teams need to design and build a robot capable of carrying out a sequence of tasks based on a specific theme. All teams use the same model table, components, sensors and engines, but due to participants’ creativity and LEGO’s versatility, every robot is unique in its looks and task-specific modules. As part of several months of planning for the national competition, the teams spent weeks fine-tuning their robots to make them proceed through the track as efficiently and as smoothly as possible.
The next milestone of the competition in Hungary will be the national finals on 29 and 30 May. The main sponsor of the Hungarian rounds of the robot-building and problem-solving competition is Telenor Hungary, while its professional partner is Telenor’s HiperSuli digital education programme. Six teams of four schools participating in the HiperSuli program are enrolled in the competition.
A summary compiled from the students’ videos is available at the YouTube channel of the HiperSuli program: for the Budapest competition click here, for the Debrecen competition click here. For the detailed agenda of the competition please visit https://play.firstlegoleague.hu/replay.htm.
Short video spots about the competition:
• “Even robots deserve a hug sometimes” (Néha a robotoknak is jár egy ölelés) :) – Vernie, the cousin of the robots entering the competition had a walk in the city for some friendly hugs. This is how the man on the street responded to his request: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0nr1k02Vmw
• “Robotics in education” (Mit keres a robotika az oktatásban?) – A video about students preparing for the competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbUVtNuRJjQ
About FIRST
FIRST® is a robotics community that prepares young people for the challenges of the coming decades through a suite of team-based robotics programs for ages 4-18 that can be facilitated in school or in structured afterschool programs. Being a leading global international non-profit educational organisation focused on science, engineering, technology and maths, FIRST runs programs combining experience-based education with team sports. Every year, there are more than 450,000 children joining First LEGO League competitions organized by FIRST and LEGO® in 110 countries worldwide. Learn more about the Hungarian competition at https://www.firstlegoleague.hu/