Winners to go to Atlanta to participate in global finals. Contestants created fully autonomous robots over 8 weeks.
Bangalore — Students from National Public School,Koramangala, Bangalore have won the First Lego League (FLL) competition organized by SAP Labs India – a competition that involved conceptualizing and building working robots to accomplish a set of complex tasks Conceptualized with the spirit to inculcate scientific thinking amongst young children in the country, the competition saw participation from 50 children in the age group of 9-14 years from various reputed schools like National Public School, Koramangala, Cambridge Public School, HSR layout & Jyothy Kendriya Vidyalaya in Bangalore.
FLL is an international program, jointly organized by First, a US based Public Charity and the Lego Company that introduces children around the world to the fun and experience of solving real-world problems by applying math, science, and technology. Meant for children aged between 9-14 years, it combines a hands-on, interactive robotics program with a sports-like atmosphere. Every year, a new Challenge is unveiled to FLL International teams across the world. These teams then strategize, design, build, program, test and refine a fully autonomous robot capable of completing the various missions of the FLL International “Robot Game” using the LEGO MINDSTORMS™ technology over a period of 8 weeks.
This year the theme of the competition was Nanotechnology – the science of building electronic devices from single atoms and molecules. The competition in India involved 5 teams comprising 10 children each, spread evenly across the participating age group. There were nine missions to be accomplished as part of the main competition, which were chosen by First Lego League in such a way that they represent one practical area of Nanotechnology.
In a neck-to-neck competition, where every team displayed its knowledge, competence & extraordinary fighting skills, students of National Public School, Koramangla, Bangalore won the competition amidst much fanfare. Names of students from the winning team include Rahul Menon, Anirban Gupta, Vikrant Varma, Vijay Bhattiprolu, Pronoy Dutt and Anurag Kesari. These children were coached by Lokesh Tripathi and Harishankar N, both employees of SAP Labs India. Sponsored by SAP, all the children in the winning team will be participating in the worldwide final of the Lego League competition to be held in Atlanta in April 2007.
SAP Labs India had been very closely involved with all the participating contestants for the past eight months. Employees of the organisation who chose to coach these children voluntarily helped them build the basic technical skills involving computer programming, engineering & design skills, technical building skills & experimentation techniques through these months.
“At SAP Labs India, we try to contribute in the overall intellectual development of children by sponsoring and organizing various educative programmes with help from our internal volunteer group SAPPORT,” said Georg Kniese, Managing Director SAP Labs India. He further went on to say, “First Lego League is also a SAPPORT initiative and we are very happy to see the enthusiasm amongst Indian children to participate in this competition. We also appreciate the support of their parents as it involved lot of time investment on their part as well.”
“Competitions like First Lego League are great means for children to know beyond what they are taught in schools and learn the dynamics of working together to achieve common goals,” said the proud parent of one of the participating children.
SAP is one of the corporate sponsors of First Lego League competition worldwide. In the past, the competition has been supported by Honeywell, India. SAP AG has been involved in organizing First Lego League competition in European countries for a long time but this is the first time that the company has organized this competition in India.
