Educate a Girl, Educate a Nation - Sierra Leone

We are super excited to share with you an upcoming program - Learning With Lego Robotics.

• Watch a video update from Sylvester showing the 5 Lego Mindstorms 51515 kits that you helped to purchase for our girls 
    
• View photos of Lego Mindstorms 51515 kits

Lego Robotics offers a wide array of benefits. - below is some information culled from the Internet - links provided below.

• Exposure to Principle of Coding: Robotics with Lego effectively expose kids/youths to both the principles and ideas of coding, like logic and elements of engineering through robotics. 
• Nurtures Imagination and Creativity: Kids are able to see their creation come to life and obey commands.
• Introduces engineering: Lego Mindstorms encourages kids to build with more variety like gears and levers. It promotes engineering where students can take the various plastic pieces to construct robots, buggies, or devices while ensuring they can physically “move” or “operate” together to successfully and repeatedly perform a task e.g. making sure none of the pieces fall when the robot moves from a spot to another.
• Emphasizes teamwork: Building a robot is not easy for kids to finish alone. We encourage them to go in groups to accomplish robots together.
• Teaches programming concepts:  When building a robot, it is important kids are aware that computers don’t and can’t think for themselves. All technology is based on code, no matter how complex it is. Lego Mindstorms runs on a visual programming environment, which is intuitive for kids because they simply need to imagine what their robot will do, and drag-and-drop plain language blocks into correct sequences using logic.
• Provides immersive a multi-sensory experience that kids get in creating and using a robot.
• Helps discover interests: Robotics can assist children in discovering their interests. Lego robotics assist kids of all ages in thinking widely with a lot of imagination. Kids’ reasoning ability and critical thinking skills improve if they learn robotics basics.  Robotics help children discover their passion in-depth. Kids who are exposed to Mathematics, Science, and Engineering subjects gain a lot of thinking skills. Creative thinking is the main idea of a kid who learns robotics. The chances of discovering their own strengths are plenty through learning robotics.  
• Robotics helps to develop leaders: Children who learn to manage robotics tend to perform better than children who do not. Strong leaders with uniqueness and strong decision-making abilities are developed via the Robotics program. The ability to control robotics progressively enhances the minds of children. As a result, children grow increasingly academically and result-oriented.
• Other Skills Developed: The children’s self-esteem and courage are boosted. Children that learn robotics increase their imagination and control ability.  Kids learn STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills and are able to learn how things work together to create a moving, sometimes talking machine that can follow specific instructions.

We are confident our girls will benefit in one or more ways from having access to these kits.

We look forward to sharing more details and videos as this is launched.

Want to help further: Below are the cost details (as of February 2022) - in case you would like to donate to help purchase more units:

• Lego Mindstorms: $359.95
• Samsung Galaxy Tablet + protective case: $192.48

Got other ideas / suggestions: Feel free to email us at globalgiving@developafrica.org 

Thank you so much for helping to equip our girls with everything they need to be successful.

We appreciate YOU!

Resources: 

• Learning Through Play With Lego Mindstorms
• Benefits of Lego Robotics Education in Teaching
• https://www.kidztopros.com/blog/the-importance-of-lego-robotics

Links:

• Intro video Sylvester - Lego Mindstorms 51515 - 5 Robotic Kits
• Photos of the 5 Lego 51515 Mindstorms Kits