PRESS ROOM & NEWS

Children in 110 Countries to Invent New Ways to Transport, Sort, and Deliver Cargo to Destinations; Amazon Future Engineer Joins FIRST^® LEGO^® League as a Global Presenting Sponsor

MANCHESTER, N.H., August 17, 2021 – FIRST^®, a robotics community that prepares young people for the future, and LEGO^® Education announced that the 2021-2022 FIRST^® LEGO^® League season, CARGO CONNECT^SM (for students ages PreK-8) will task students to research and invent new ways to move goods safely and efficiently, and how to improve the future of cargo transportation.

For the FIRST LEGO League CARGO CONNECT season, FIRST collaborated with experts in the fields of automotive engineering, highway safety and new vehicle technologies. These experts, who made up the Challenge Advisory Team, helped create a theme and challenge missions that reflect what it takes to transport, sort, and deliver goods to destinations all over the globe.

“FIRST LEGO League is all about empowering kids, even as young as four, to be problem solvers,” said Chris Rake, interim president, FIRST. “We are eager to watch our teams around the world collaborate and have fun with this season’s challenge. We are hopeful that we can welcome more students from more school districts to FIRST this season, and that educators can use FIRST as a tool to help students reconnect with their peers and hands-on learning. The safety of our participants continues to be our number one priority, and we will continue to offer flexible options so that no matter what, kids everywhere have the opportunity to innovate, explore, and hone important skills during the CARGO CONNECT season.”

This season, FIRST LEGO League events may be offered in traditional, remote, or hybrid formats and will be determined by local Program Delivery Partners. For the latest updates about the impact of COVID-19 on FIRST events, please visit: https://www.firstinspires.org/covid-19

Team registration for all FIRST LEGO League divisions is now open.

The 2021-2022 CARGO CONNECT season will inspire children in grades PreK-4 to explore how cargo is transported, sorted and delivered to its destinations.

• FIRST^® LEGO^® League Discover students (grades PreK-1) are tasked with building a sorting center from LEGO^® DUPLO^® bricks and creating a team model showing how packages are sorted and transported to their destinations.
   
• FIRST^® LEGO^® League Explore students (grades 2-4) will learn to build and code with LEGO^® Education SPIKE^TM Essential or LEGO^® Education WeDo 2.0 to power a model of a sorting center. They will create a team model showing how cargo is sorted and transported to its destinations. During the process they will explore, create, test, and share their ideas.
   
• FIRST^® LEGO^® League Challenge teams (grades 4-8) to develop new, innovative ways to rethink and improve the way cargo is transported from place to place. Participants will build and code their LEGO^® Education SPIKE^TM Prime or LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® Education EV3 to perform transportation and cargo-themed missions in the CARGO CONNECT Robot Game. The missions reflect potential thought-starters for their self-directed Innovation Project where students will identify a problem related to access, safety, efficiency, or connections to product journeys; research the problem; and design a new piece of technology or improve an existing one to help them solve that problem.

“The processes and technology around cargo transportation are growing more advanced every year, making the CARGO CONNECT season meaningful and exciting for students whether they are new to STEAM or returning champions,” said Camilla Bottke, Global Head of Competitions, LEGO Education. “We are thrilled that FIRST LEGO League Explore students will have the opportunity to participate using our new LEGO Education SPIKE Essential solution to ignite their passion for STEAM learning. We cannot wait to see the innovative ideas students from all over the world will come up with because they show us over and over again what can be achieved with curiosity, resilience and great teamwork!”

FIRST LEGO League CARGO CONNECT is part of the 2021-2022 FIRST^® FORWARD^SM presented by Qualcomm robotics season. FIRST LEGO League Global Program Sponsors include Amazon Future Engineer, LEGO Education, and The LEGO Foundation. FIRST LEGO League Challenge Division Sponsor is Rockwell Automation.

Amazon Future Engineer is a childhood-to-career computer science education program intended to inspire and educate millions of students globally, including hundreds of thousands of students in the U.S. each year. Students explore computer science through school curriculum and project-based learning, using code to make music, program robots, and solve problems. “Amazon and FIRST share a commitment to helping students from underserved and historically underrepresented communities explore a world of possibilities through computer science,” said Victor Reinoso, Global Director, Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon in the Community. “We are thrilled to partner with FIRST to help students discover computer science through the lens of how Amazon uses our transportation and logistics network to improve lives by delivering meals to families in need, expediting relief supplies to communities hit by natural disasters, and leading live educational tours of our fulfillment centers.”

All FIRST LEGO League divisions are guided by the FIRST Core Values that celebrate discovery, innovation, impact, inclusion, teamwork, and fun. Coaches receive Team Meeting Guides to help facilitate the program and students receive Engineering Notebooks to document their experiences.

FIRST LEGO League belongs to the Progression of Programs offered by FIRST. FIRST is an international not-for-profit organization founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators.

About FIRST^®
FIRST^® is a robotics community that prepares young people for the future through a suite of inclusive, team-based robotics programs for ages 4-18 (PreK-12) that can be facilitated in school or in structured afterschool programs. An international not-for-profit organization founded by accomplished inventor Dean Kamen in 1989, FIRST has a proven impact on STEM learning, interest, and skill-building well beyond high school. Boosted by a global support system of mentors, coaches, volunteers, alumni, and sponsors that include over 200 of the Fortune 500 companies, teams operate under a signature set of FIRST Core Values to conduct research, fundraise, design, and build robots, then compete and celebrate at local, regional, and international events. High school students are eligible for more than $80 million in college scholarships. Learn more at firstinspires.org.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, MINDSTORMS, the Minifigure and the SPIKE logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. ©2021 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. 

About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.