Space and robotics, star turns of the Grand Finale of the FIRST LEGO League

On 24th March, in Adeje (Tenerife), GMV took part in the National Grand Finale of the FIRST LEGO League. Held this year for the thirteenth time, this international competition, targeted at youngsters aged 6 to 16, aims to encourage budding science and technological careers among primary and secondary pupils.

Each year FIRST LEGO League challenge sets a current-day problem for which the participants have to come up with their own solution, drawing on science and technology. Held under the banner theme “INTO ORBIT”, the challenge in the 2018-2019 competition was to identify a physical or social problem for human beings that might crop up in a long-term space mission within the solar system and then design and carry out a science project to serve as a solution to the problem. In answer to this challenge 16,000 youngsters, divided into two age brackets of 6 to 9 (FIRST LEGO League Junior) and 10 to 16 (FIRST LEGO League), called on all their, skills, teamwork and learning abilities to vie with and outwit the other contenders.

After 37 knock-out rounds held around the whole of Spain, 650 youngsters got through to the Spanish Grand Finale of the FIRST LEGO League, where, on 23 and 24 March, they all presented their science projects and robots to meet the INTO ORBIT challenge. Eleven teams then won berths in the international phase of the challenge, to be held in various cities around the world, together with the winning teams from the 98 participating countries.

Fundación Scientia is the organizer of this Spanish Grand Finale, in collaboration this year with the Cabildo (Council) of Tenerife, through its Tenerife 2030 Area and INtech Tenerife.

Ever since 2008, GMV has kept up a close link with this organizing foundation, acting as collaborating entity of the event; this year it has also been one of the sponsors. Furthermore, Miguel Ángel Molina, Director of the Commercial Department – GMV Aerospace, handed over the GMV Strategy and Innovation Prize and also gave an interesting chat about the space sector and the encouraging of scientific-technological careers.