The FIRST LEGO League Challenge program and competition was successfully held at the Crnjanski International School on February 12, 2023. It was organized by the Association “Real Deal”, the SerbianTech organization and the Slovenian Super Glavce organization. As many as 16 teams from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina took part, and the “LegoMafia” team from the First grammar school from Kragujevac won the competition.

Support was also provided by the companies Knjaz Miloš and Jaffa Crvenka, which provided refreshments to the participants and organizers on the day of the competition.

As before, this FIRST LEGO League season was marked by the strengthening of team spirit, positive energy and learning through fun.

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 called “SUPERPOWERED”. The focus was on finding innovative solutions for more efficient generation, storage, distribution and use of energy. The teams had the task of combining different scientific disciplines to come up with an innovative solution for the given problem, present how they would incorporate it in the community 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 Challenge competition of the 2022/2023 season was won by the “LegoMafia” team from 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 entry to the regional competition, which will be held on March 18 in Slovenia.

In addition to the team of the First Grammar School of Kragujevac, which took first place in the general ranking, three more teams are going to Slovenia on March 18. The “NOOBOVI” team from the Digi Klinci programming school in Belgrade, the “Thunderbots” from the “Desanka Maksimović” Elementary School in Prijedor, as well as the “Himera Transformers” from the IT Akademija Himera in Kragujevac.

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 team of the First Grammar School of Kragujevac “LegoMafia” won the most points when completing missions on a special surface within the Robot Game. The best solution for the Innovative Project was the team “NOOBOVI” from the school of robotics and programming – Digi Klinci in Belgrade. The evaluators recognized the best designed and programmed robot from the “Himera Transformers” team from the IT Akademija Himera in Kragujevac, and it took first place in this field. The “Lego Kings” team from “Kralj Aleksandar I” Elementary School in Požarevac emphasized its 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 to pass the missions, respecting all the detailed rules for that part of the competition, four judges closely monitored all the rounds and carefully scored each obstacle crossed. Among them are Danijela Pantić, Aleksa Gligorić, Marko Šćepanović, headed by the chief judge, Mihailo Šundović.

The evaluation of the Innovative Project as the most creative part of the competition fell into the hands of Irena Jovičić, Mirko Spasojević and Nikola Obradović, who looked at the innovative solutions of the teams as well as why and in what way they chose those solutions.

Suad Suljović, Ivan Miletić and Ivan Paunović considered and evaluated the way the robot was designed and programmed and how the teams thought during the thought process.

Milica Zarić, Sandra Stojković and Jelena Pršić were the judges who evaluated how much and how 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 and completion of the missions.

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