Ayub Competes In The FIRST Lego League Jr. Malaysia

Ayub and Sulaiman have been attending Bricks4Kidz for around a year. It’s a LEGO class! They go once a week for an hour and learn about the topic of the day, then they build something based on what they’ve been learning about.

Bricks4Kidz joins the FIRST Lego League Jr. Malaysia

It’s super cool. Early robotics, encourages creativity, problem-solving skills, perfect for lil engineer brains.

Ayub has always been gifted with visual perception, scoring in the top 95 percentile for tests. He’s built creations for as long as I’ve known him. Whether it’s from his toys, the sofa cushions, buckets and hoses outdoors, or whatever junk he’s found in the house. It’s what he does.

Anyway, together with four other kids from the Bricks4Kidz program, Ayub joined the FIRST Lego League Jr.

Preparation for the big presentation

It was pretty last minute so the kids only had 2 or 3 weeks to prepare. They all attended the class once a week at different times. Meanwhile, their competitors were kids from both public and private schools who obviously had much more time to prepare as they could (in theory) meet up every day.

All the same, our kids did awesome. Here they are practising with their teacher (who I love!)

We thought a Lego competition would entail the kids building a piece then and there for a set time, which sounded awesome! Kinda like a colouring competition. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that at all.

Instead, they had to prepare an oral presentation. Not so cool for young kids aged 6-9.

So preparation was mainly researching, writing, and presenting. Boo.

Competition weekend arrives

The day of the competition was… uneventful. I think this was a government-sponsored event? It showed. So. Badly. Organised.

Basically the kids had to be there at 8am on a Saturday morning to set up, then present their piece to the judges at 4pm. So ridiculous. Luckily the kids and their teachers were amazing. It was definitely an experience to remember.

Ayub was an awesome presenter. The theme was animals (?) and they had chosen to present about an chameleon. They had built a LEGO chameleon that could be controlled with an iPad. I don’t know how these things work, but I thought it was super cool.

The award ceremony

The first day ended around 6pm (ridiculous organisers). We were back the next day for the results. Apparently the kids were meant to be there at 8am again. But their teacher instructed us to come in closer to noon. We did. Nothing was happening. More than half the junior competitors hadn’t showed up at all. Honestly, what did the organisers expect little kids to do all day??

No worries.

After lunch it was time for the award ceremony. Lots of long boring speeches from boring datuks and a terrible powerpoint presentation passed off as a video later, and it was time for the winner announcement!

Bricks4Kidz won Best Robust Design. I have no idea what that means but it makes me happy for the kids and the school <3 Here’s ayub holding his cert and the prize!

Good job Bricks4Kidz!