For the second year in a row, in the First Grammar School of Kragujevac, on April 17, 2022, the FIRST LEGO League Challenge competition was successfully held, organized by the Association “Real Deal”, the SerbianTech organization and the Slovenian organization Super Glavce. As many as fourteen teams from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina participated, and the host, the team of the First grammar school from Kragujevac, “LegoChikenzz”, won the competition.

The teams started preparations for the program already in 2021, working diligently on designing and programming robots, research work for the Innovative Project and developing Core Values.

The full-day program allowed the participants to express their potential in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics through fun and exciting practical learning and the use of didactic materials and LEGO Education sets.

The opening ceremony was also attended by the rector of the University of Kragujevac, prof. Dr. Nenad Filipović and the director of the First Grammar School of Kragujevac, Slavica Marković.

Out of a total of fourteen teams, the four best-ranked teams won direct placement in the regional competition in Slovenia. In addition to the team of the First Grammar School of Kragujevac, which took first place in the general classification, three more teams are going to Slovenia on May 14, 2022.

AHAVA – Association of Serbian-Israeli Friendship, provided the winning team with a prize voucher on behalf of the Embassy of Israel.

For each of the four parts of the project, one winning team was awarded that stood out in that part.

And this year, the Tesla brand recognized the importance and values ​​of the FIRST LEGO League program and organizers and provided support for this year’s organization of the competition.

The organization was also supported by the companies Jaffa Crvenka, Rauch and Plantago, who provided refreshments to the participants and organizers on the day of the competition. Also, support was provided by the Dragon Maritime company.

Fun, learning, socializing, strengthening team spirit and collegiality also marked this season of the FIRST LEGO League competition, which opened a new chapter in our science.

FIRST LEGO League competition consists of four parts – Robot Game, Robot Design, Innovative Project and Core Value.

Robot Game, the most interactive part of the competition, involved designing and programming a robot that has the task of crossing obstacles on a special surface. Each team, guided by creativity and imagination, designed its own LEGO robot that had two and a half minutes to complete the given missions on the LEGO mat and achieve as many points as possible. The teams had three attempts to score as many points as possible, of which the best score was taken into account at the end, which became the final score for that part of the competition.

Robot Design is the part in which the teams presented their robots to the judges. More precisely, the teams had the task of presenting to the judges the way the robot was designed and programmed, the strategy of designing the robot and the way the robot completes the missions. Through discussion with the teams, the judges drew conclusions about the mentioned characteristics and evaluated them.

Each season, the specificity of the competition lies in the theme of the Innovative Project. Namely, this year’s theme of the project was “CargoConnect” and was related to designing ways to improve the sustainability of transport in the future. The teams had the task of combining different scientific disciplines to come up with an innovative solution for the stated problem, present how they would incorporate it and present it all to the judges.

What distinguishes this FIRST LEGO League program from similar ones are the Core Values ​​that connect all parts of the competition, teach children teamwork and collegiality in relation to other competitors. The program aims to bring children closer to science, but in an extremely creative and fun way.

By participating in this year’s competition, members of all teams received medals and certificates for their demonstrated initiative and desire to learn, however, several teams stood out and deservedly won valuable prizes.

When looking at all parts of the competition and the total points won, the victory at the FIRST LEGO League competition of the 2021/2022 season was won by the “LegoČikenzz” team from the The First grammar school from Kragujevac led by mentors Katarina Veljković, Ana Stanković, Ljubica Mudrić Staniškovski, Marina Jelenić and Mihailo Miletić. By winning first place, the team from Kragujevac secured a direct placement at the regional robotics competition in Slovenia.

Apart from the team from Kragujevac, three more teams won a direct placement to Slovenia – „ElektRobot“ from Prijepolje, team moNSters from Dečiji Inovacioni Centar in Novi Sad and team DIC-CCAIT from Dečiji Inovacioni Centar in Belgrade.

These four best-placed teams showed, first of all, extremely expressed team spirit and cooperation, innovative solutions for the problem they were solving, as well as brilliantly designed and programmed robots that had great success in completing missions.

Also, a prize was awarded for the best teams which stood out in the parts of the competition – Robot Game, Robot Design, Innovative Project and Core Values.

The victory in the Robot Game and Robot Design was won by the team “PoliBoti” from the Politehnika – škola za nove tehnologije in Belgrade. The best solution for the Innovative Project was the team of “Noobovi” from the school of robotics and programming – Digi Klinci in Belgrade. The “moNSters” team from the  Dečiji Inovacioni Centar emphasised their core values ​​- teamwork, fun, influence, innovation, inclusion and research.

In order for everything to go according to the rules and without any irregularities, a thirteen-member team of trained judges was assigned to evaluate the teams for all four categories.

In order for the robots to pass the missions respecting all the detailed rules for that part of the competition, three judges closely monitored all the rounds and carefully scored each crossed obstacle. Among them are Danijela Pantić, Vuk Lazović, Anđela Radojević, headed by Mihailo Šundović.

Zaviša Gordić , Ivan Miletić i Maja Andonović-Radojević considered and evaluated the way the robot was designed and programmed and how the teams were thinking during the thought process.

The evaluation of the Innovative Project as the most creative part of the competition fell into the hands of Suad Suljović, Nemanja Kandić and Vuk Ninić, who looked at the innovative solutions of the teams, as well as why and in what way teams chose those solutions.

Milica Perišić, Lazar Lekić and Strahinja Ćalović were the judges who assessed how much and in which way the teams incorporated the Core Values ​​of the competition in everything they do, i.e. during the creation of the project, preparation for the competition, presentation of the results, cooperation during the launch of the robot, completion of missions and others.

The work of the judges and the quality of the judging was under the watchful eye of the Judge Advisor, Anđela Baša, who solved the doubts of the judges, gave them advice and, of course, made a whole team that correctly voted for the winners of this year’s FIRST LEGO League competition season.