Being part of an educational robotics team in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge, and specifically in Lego Masters, is much more than building robots or competing in a tournament. It means experiencing a complete, collaborative, and transformative project in which every learner selected for the team discovers new skills, strengthens attitudes, acquires new knowledge, overcomes challenges, and realizes that they can impact the real world with creative ideas through four fundamental areas:
- Innovation Project: From the beginning of the season, the team learns to research far beyond online sources by conducting visits, interviews, and conversations with specialists to identify real problems and propose innovative solutions, verifying their feasibility for implementation. Through iterative prototyping and continuous improvement, we also learn to defend our ideas with strong arguments, communicate effectively, present using dramatization, consider new perspectives, and reuse existing resources. In the last two seasons, the Navy and archaeologists validated our solutions, showing that what we create in class has real-world value and can genuinely contribute to society.
- Robot Design: The team works collaboratively to create an efficient robot and attachments, exploring engineering concepts, sensors, motors, physics principles, and digital tools.
- Robot Performance: All of this is applied to the themed missions the team chooses to solve, combining our construction with the programming we developed. Since the beginning of our participation, we have already come very close to the Top 10 ranking, making us extremely proud of our growth and achievements.
- Core Values: The team must apply the program’s fundamental principles: Discovery, Inclusion, Teamwork, Innovation, Impact, and Fun.
Impact on Daily Life & Academic Skills
Balancing robotics with school and extracurricular activities enriches learning across multiple subjects because the project develops critical thinking, creativity, organization, and a more systematic approach to problem-solving.
Some concrete examples include recommending a field trip for all G4 learners after our museum visit for the Innovation Project, collaborating on PYP Exhibition projects, and the significant behavioral transformation of a learner directly linked to their participation in the group.
The Intensity of the Process & Teamwork
The process is intense and requires developing multiple skills at the same time, such as thinking like an engineer, programmer, scientist, and designer. Learners practice working with different media and materials, applying research methodologies, using reliable sources, and utilizing technology critically while constantly testing, failing, improving, and trying again. We learn to organize and divide tasks, manage deadlines, plan, define strategies, and even handle team resources such as fundraising, budgeting, and engaging the school community—fully supported by internal and external mentors who guided our work.
It is also an environment where every member is heard and respected, finding a safe place to be themselves and contributing with their unique characteristics. There are no fixed roles: responsibilities rotate, collaboration is constant, and everyone gets the chance to try everything. This teaches us to let go of certain ideas, deal with limitations, think collectively, recognize our weaknesses, and transform mistakes into opportunities for growth.
Cooperation & Citizenship
Interacting with other teams is also an essential part of the journey. We share ideas, exchange experiences, receive feedback, and learn to compete in a healthy way—focusing much more on surpassing ourselves than on defeating others. We celebrate small achievements, view mistakes as learning opportunities, and strengthen the program’s values through respect, cooperation, solidarity, and joy.
Examples of this include donating LEGO pieces, helping new robotics learners, running a bottle-cap collection campaign, and creating a comic book to spread archaeological knowledge. And, of course, there is no shortage of fun moments: the team chant, group dynamics, working with LEGO, building our team identity and theme, and the welcoming environment itself.
The Role of the Coach
This entire experience is guided by the coach, who acts as a mentor—someone who motivates the team, supports their processes, and encourages autonomy so learners become true protagonists, creating technology rather than just consuming it. In the last two seasons, I was honored as a finalist for the Outstanding Coach Award, placing among the top five nominees. In the constant pursuit of improvement and driven by the passion this program has sparked, I had the opportunity to volunteer and judge at a tournament in Windisch, Switzerland, during my January vacation this year.
Much More Than a Hobby: A Purpose for the Future
Participating in the **FIRST LEGO League Challenge** is not a hobby: it is a serious, demanding, inspiring, and extremely fun project. It requires an integrated structure in order to reach its full potential, including the availability of resources, especially time to develop the activities.
The real reward is not only attending the end-of-season event—or possibly receiving physical recognition—but the journey itself: learning together, building friendships, witnessing everyone’s growth, inspiring others, and realizing that what begins as a small school project can become a future career, university opportunity, or personal purpose.
Some concrete examples include gaining facilitated access to universities after winning medals, choosing future career paths because of exposure during the project, or even achieving immediate academic improvement through a deeper understanding of the concepts we work with.
Additionally, all this context of the **FIRST LEGO League Challenge**, which is aligned with BNCC Computação and the STEAM curriculum developed and implemented by our school, can inspire both the internal and external community. This provides visibility locally and internationally before and during the events, highlighting our institution’s position as a place of innovation with an international mindset. The positive feedback from parents and learners regarding the benefits of participating, combined with meeting teams from similar schools at the events, indicates that we are on the right track, with plenty of room for growth.
In the end, the program teaches us to be persistent, creative, and collaborative. It teaches us to think outside the box, share, listen, iterate, and always strive for our best. Being part of a team means discovering that, when we work together, we can go much farther than we ever imagined.
Author
Fabricio Laurenti
Fabricio Laurenti has been involved in EdTech for over 20 years and is passionate about robotics and STEAM education. As the Primary STEAM Lead, he has designed and implemented a curriculum that extends across both Units of Inquiry and after-school programs, providing learners with authentic, real-world challenges that encourage them to think like engineers, scientists, designers, and innovators. Holding a postgraduate qualification in Education 5.0, Fabricio believes in the power of collaborative competition teams as a vehicle for meaningful learning, where the true measure of success is not winning, but growth. Through hands-on projects and authentic learning experiences, he promotes critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, resilience, teamwork, confidence, inclusion, and learner agency. He is committed to creating environments where every learner feels heard, valued, and empowered to contribute. Fabricio believes that these experiences can be a game changer in learners’ academic and personal lives, inspiring them to become creators, innovators, and lifelong learners.
