BUZET - sySTEM reSTART

We are Mecha Penguins, a team from the Elementary School "Vazmoslav Gržalja" from Buzet (Croatia), made up of 5 girls and 5 boys, who participate in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics competition.

It is a competition that is the pinnacle of project-based learning. This is no ordinary competition, it is a celebration of children's diligence, knowledge, imagination and cooperation.

The FLL program is based on STEAM principles and was founded in 1998 in the USA, while it has been implemented in Europe since 2001. The number of participants in the FLL program grows every year, and today it connects more than 110 countries of the world in which over 340,000 children participate in 40,000 teams.

Read more about the game itself and the organization here http://www.firstlegoleague.org/about-fll

As part of the preparations for this competition, we touched on the challenge of collecting the necessary funds for the competition. On that occasion, from our discussion about costs and goals for this competitive season, the idea was born that we actually want something more.

We want STEAM education to enter our school!

We want our classmates to have the opportunity to work and learn all those things that we ourselves learn through the preparation for FLL (entrepreneurship, marketing, programming, robotics, creativity, coping, finding solutions).

With the help of our mentors from the association "Pozitron - center for technological development and STEM education" and the teacher of Elementary School "Vazmoslav Gržalja", we developed the idea of an extracurricular school activity based on the Lego learning system (Lego Education). Our wish is to introduce the program in the home school in Buzet, but also in regional schools.

With the collected funds, 20 educational robotic sets from the Lego Education program will be purchased, with the help of which extracurricular activities will be held for younger ages (1st-4th grade) and older ages (5th-8th grade).

In addition, we will use the funds to cover part of the costs of going to the FIRST LEGO League competition, which will be held in Zagreb at the beginning of February 2023.

For the implementation of our project, we need your help in the form of a donation, which will provide the necessary robotic educational material for our school.