Let's Motorize and Let's be Safe

In todays' session, we have been sticking closer to the official FIRST Lego League PowerPoint slide decks and multimedia resources. We covered Session 5 ('Let's Motorize') and Session 6 ('Let's be safe'). Some of the activities included querying the kids about the difference between products, packages, and cargo. Also, we had them brainstorm what they think what kind of products are being moved in our community

Distribution Center Safety!

Since session six is about safety, we challenged the team to find safety features in the videos. The videos were an excellent opportunity for the kids to draw parallels between real-life sorting facilities and our very own distribution center project. The team subsequently decided to implement three safety features for our distribution center. We built some prototypes but are still in the process of figuring out how to incorporate this into our distribution center:

1. A blinking light

2. A beeping sound as the conveyor belts are starting

3. An emergency off switch. 

FIRST Lego League Values - Impact

Finally, we covered the question of how we can make an Impact, which is one of the core values of FIRST.

Summary and Next Steps

Overall – it was a very productive session. We did not yet document the beautifully updated conveyer belt and motorized sorting capabilities Will and Brandon have been working on during the week. We will work on presenting this during next weeks' sessions. Also - since the sorting facility seems to be 90% completed, we have been exploring options to expand our project. In addition to the sorting facility, we contemplate a receiving facility for the trucks, ships, trains, and eventually even an air terminal.