Nigerian Students Shine at Robotics Challenge

By Nosa Alekhuogie

About 1,320 students from the 132 teams including student from all 104 Unity School in Nigeria, were among the over 500,000 children around the world who participated in the 2020/2021 LEGO League Challenge.

The missions reflected potential thought-starters for their self-directed innovation project, where students will identify a problem related to people not being active enough, research the problem and design a new piece of technology or improve an existing one to help them solve that problem.

The aim of the program was to help students develop innovation, critical thinking and lifelong skills and these are the skills that would prepare them for the future of work and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4iR).

The program was organised by Coderina Education and Technology Foundation (Coderina) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education with support from SAP, DOW, Ford, NITDA, the LEGO Foundation and FIRST.

Students from schools in the northern and southern regions of Nigeria, competed in Kano and Lagos respectively in a head-to-head, putting more than 12 weeks of research, design, and programming to the test in the first-ever regional championships to win honors and recognition.

For the National Championship, the regional qualifiers/winners, alongside other private schools and neighbourhood teams converged online in a 3-day virtual competition.

At the end of the National Championship, Queen College Lagos; a new entrant to the program and all-girls school, emerged as the overall winner of the championship.

Federal Science and Technology College, Orozo, came second, while Team AIROL, an all-girls team from University of Lagos AI Lab, came third.

The three teams will represent Nigeria at the International Open Championship in Greece.
The National Champions from Queens College created an amazing App called Access- The app that gets people active by connecting people interested in the same sports.

Many other teams like FGGC Ikot Obio, Vivian Fowler Memorial College, FGC Robochi, FSTC Usi-Ekiti, FSTC Tungbo, FGC Daura, FGGC Ezzamgbo, Hillside School Abuja and others, won accolades in different categories.

The Director, Technology and Science Education, Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria, Mrs. Elizabeth Adedigba, said the objective was to expose the children to 21st Century technology and skills.

“The Ministry is aware of the fact that the world does not wait for anybody and artificial intelligence is gaining ground across sectors. The Federal Unity Colleges; being model schools, we have to start with the children to acquire the skills and boost their creative insights, innovation and team work progression such they can built it in them right from this stage,” Adedigba said.