Western Edge FIRST LEGO League with 82 Teams Worldwide
'Legomania' Team Represents Korea... Honored with 1st Place in Robot Competition Category
Elementary, middle, and high school students from the Gwangju area showcased South Korea's top skills to the world by reaching the pinnacle at the World Robot Competition, which featured elite teams from around the globe.
The 'Lego Mania' team, consisting of Kim Jin-seok (Jinheung High School, 1st year), Oh Ji-hoo (Gwangju Middle School, 3rd year), Han Seung-pyo (Munseong Middle School, 3rd year), Jo Min-jun (Gwangdeok Middle School, 2nd year), So Jeon-bin (Juwol Middle School, 1st year), Choi Hee-seung (Bulro Elementary School, 6th grade), and Kang Ru-yeon (Bulro Elementary School, 4th grade), coached by Kim Ji-seon, represented South Korea at the 2024 Western Edge Open (LA, California) world competition held from May 31 to June 2.
At the Western Edge FIRST LEGO League Challenge, which featured 82 teams worldwide, the Lego Mania team secured first place in the robot competition category.
The FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is a global robotics competition for youth from countries around the world, inspiring students' spirit of challenge each year through different themes and missions. This year's theme was 'Master Piece,' which explored the process of energy production and distribution used by humans and investigated ways to use energy more efficiently and equitably.
The Lego Mania team demonstrated their understanding of core values by creating a stage that automatically rotates and an 'automatic door machine' where the curtain in front of the stage opens automatically when a sensor is triggered. The robots required for the competition were operated by attaching modules suited to various missions on the base robot to complete tasks on the playing field.
Previously, the Lego Mania team earned first place in the robot performance category at the 2023-2024 FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Korea Challenge, which qualified them to participate in this world robot competition.
Kim Ji-seon, director of the Coding Robotics Smart Learning Center and coach of the Lego Mania team, said, "Beyond winning, the process of preparing for this world competition, where students deeply considered and practiced the operation and data processing technologies of sophisticated robots, itself became a great stepping stone for growth." She added, "Despite the high difficulty level and the surprise mission given on the competition day through an alliance with two American teams, our Lego Mania team researched and programmed it very impressively."
She continued, "Regardless of the awards, the competition was meaningful because every student continued to strive and challenge themselves to improve until the very end of the event," and added, "Through the world competition, I hope the participating students will continue to work hard and experience good results, and become students who enjoy robotics and coding."
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