WATCH: How Lego robots are inspiring the next generation of problem solvers

In November, a string of atmospheric rivers slammed into British Columbia, devastating highways, and severing crucial supply chains.

That, coupled with the pressure put on global transportation routes thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, shone a spotlight on the fragility of these connections.

And now, thanks to a competition spearheaded by Lego, students in the Okanagan and around the globe are reimagining how technology and robots can improve how the world accesses and delivers goods.

“It offers a lot of creative, critical thinking,” Deena McDell told Kelowna10. “You must build your robot as well as code it. There’s a lot of good educational aspects to robotics.”

McDell is a robotics teacher at HS Grenda Middle School. She was the head of a group of students who competed at the 2021/2022 First LEGO League Cargo Connect challenge. Her team competed at a provincial championship earlier this year and finished in the Top 20.

Competitors had to build and program a Lego Mindstorms robot focused on resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation in global transportation.

The teams earned points through gameplay, an interview about their robot, and by creating an innovating project that related to the competition theme.

The November natural disaster and subsequent damage of crucial highways in British Columbia occupied lots of discussion among her pupils, and how technology could be used to find solutions to future, similar disasters.

Grade seven student Hein Kritzinger was part of the team that competed. He said one of the hardest parts of the competition was creating a dependable code to complete assigned tasks.

“It was pretty challenging to get everything right and working consistently because sometimes it would run into objects when it wouldn’t before,” he said.

For teammate, Alex Hoppe, the journey into robotics was simple.

“Both of my parents are in that field. My mom is a software developer, and my dad is a system administrator,” he said. “I’ve always been around coding and learned a lot about it. For this it was just about using it in competition.”

Teams from Canyon Falls Middle School, Constable Neil Bruce Middle School, Dr. Knox Middle School, Glenrosa Middle School, and Springvalley Middle School all took part, too.