Lego League Challenge: Year 8 Girls' Team
Calling all year 8 girls and non-binary students! Get involved with a global STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) challenge. Work as a team to programme robots, create innovative designs, develop your problem solving skills, and lots more!
Registrations for 2023/24 are now closed.
This year, the University of York and local IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) network are sponsoring and supporting a cross-York team of year 8 girls and/or non-binary students to compete in the regional Lego League Challenge Tournament, taking place on Friday 8 March 2024, with the opportunity to go on to national or even international finals.
The team is open to any girl or non-binary student in year 8 who lives within travelling distance of York Explore, the central library. The team will meet weekly from 4pm - 5.30pm in the Garden Room at York Explore, from Wednesday 6 December 2023 to Wednesday 6 March 2024.
FIRST LEGO League Challenge is a global competition that develops key skills for future careers, including coding, design and research.
Teams of up to ten young people, aged 9-16, work together to explore a given topic and to design, build and program an autonomous Lego robot to solve a series of missions.
This year’s theme is Masterpiece. Teams will imagine and innovate new ways to create and communicate art across the globe. Use your imagination to re-think the world of arts!
Find out more about the FIRST LEGO League Challenge.
Dates and location of the club
The club will meet every Wednesday, 4pm - 5.30pm at York Explore library (Garden Room) from Wednesday 6 December 2023 to Wednesday 6 March 2024*. Wednesday 14 February will be a full-day session during half term, held at the University of York campus.
*Note: The club will not take place over Christmas and New Year, 27 December and 3 January.
How to book a place
Registrations are now closed for 2023/24.
If you have any questions, please contact pet-outreach@york.ac.uk or phone 01904 322408.
We are targeting students who are underrepresented in engineering and in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers. We want to give girls and non-binary students the opportunity to see what's involved with engineering to enable them to make up their own minds whether it's for them.
The team will meet each week in the Garden Room at York Explore Library (Library Square, York, YO1 7DS). The library is very central and can be accessed by both bus and train.
There will also be the opportunity to attend a full day event at the University of York on Wednesday 14 February (half term).
The team will meet every Wednesday, 4pm - 5.30pm on the following dates:
- Wednesday 6 December 2023
- Wednesday 13 December 2023
- Wednesday 20 December 2023
- Wednesday 10 January 2024
- Wednesday 17 January 2024
- Wednesday 24 January 2024
- Wednesday 31 January 2024
- Wednesday 7 February 2024
- Wednesday 21 February 2024
- Wednesday 28 February 2024
- Wednesday 6 March 2024
In addition, the team will meet for a full day on Wednesday 14 January (half term).
The team will be attending the regional tournament in York on Friday 8 March 2024.
The sessions will be led by Jess Schofield, an engineer from the University of York and part of the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology outreach team. In addition, the sessions will supported by a range of University of York undergraduate ambassadors and engineers, and computer scientists, and by engineers working in companies and organisations external to the University. This will give the participating students the opportunity to find out about potential careers.
Each week we will work through part of the Challenge programme. This includes learning to programme your Lego Spike Prime robot, designing modifications to your robot to enable it to solve challenges, researching how technology is used in the arts, coming up with creative solutions to problems, and preparing a presentation. You'll also have the opportunity to meet engineers and find out what they do.
You don't need anything to get involved! We will supply all the kit and will show you everything you need to know. Everything will start with the basics and build up from there.
Parents are invited to join the first session to find out more about the programme. After this, we would ask that parents do not come into the club. However, the library will be open throughout, so parents are very welcome to stay close by.
We regret that registrations are now closed for 2023/24.