Race to build a common figure?

[kkinney]

I'm thinking about competitive building of LEGO figures among children.

I plan on 4 sets of matching LEGO bricks, showing the kids a figure and having them race to copy that figure. I'm willing to do this, but would rather not re-invent the wheel.

Are there any existing plans or curriculum that does this?

Thank you,
Kevin Kinney

[dna1990]

I would start with your inventory. What parts do you have 5 of each? Then go with your imagination.

Expand this idea for older kids and team them up. In each pair of kids, have them sit back to back. One holds the completed model, the other a pile of parts (can't see the completed model). Make them verbally describe how to build the model. Good for team communication.

[kkinney]

Thank you for clarifying my thoughts. We already do something like this to facilitate communication.

Does anyone know of an existing curriculum to do anything like this? For example, all possible figures made from a common set of LEGO bricks?

Regards,
kk

[PumpkinPi]

Below is something I had my team build during our first meeting. All of the kids were new to FLL, so this project got them working together and with LEGO in their very first meeting. It also drilled the letters "FLL" into their heads. Blue and red bricks are common, so It was easy to find enough pieces to build 4 of these out of my own set.

I placed one finished model in one room and bags of the pieces needed in another (one per team). With two kids on each team, I told them to pick one "communicator" (the only one allowed to run into the next room to see the finished model) and one "builder" (the only one who was allowed to touch the bricks). This game built communication and teamwork skills, especially because the communicator wasn't even allowed to point to the pieces. As a result, the communicator had to give good descriptions and the builder ended up trying to find good questions to ask ("We are building letters? What are we spelling?" "Oh, this is supposed to be an 'F'? Was it done like this?").

I have found that having small activities like this are extremely valuable. It gives the kids a chance to take a break from whatever project they are working on and stretch their brain a bit. Especially if they have been working the research project for a long time and want to build something but there isn't enough time to get out the NXT. The kids look forward to it, and it helps with their core values.

FLL model for speed build described above:

[someonewhobikes]

Originally Posted by PumpkinPi

I placed one finished model in one room and bags of the pieces needed in another (one per team). With two kids on each team, I told them to pick one "communicator" (the only one allowed to run into the next room to see the finished model) and one "builder" (the only one who was allowed to touch the bricks). This game built communication and teamwork skills, especially because the communicator wasn't even allowed to point to the pieces. As a result, the communicator had to give good descriptions and the builder ended up trying to find good questions to ask ("We are building letters? What are we spelling?" "Oh, this is supposed to be an 'F'? Was it done like this?").

I like the "FLL" thing; we may have to do that next year. We do a teamwork exercise like this, except we use 3 kids per team. The communicator talks to both the "looker" and the "builder" & never sees the model. We have a collection of small models (semi-randomly built by some of our FRC mentors) with 10 to 15 pieces each. No one has the same model.