Globeducate France Robotics Challenge

Globeducate France welcomes 35 teams, from nine schools to Robotics Challenge

The final stage of the robotics challenge organised by GLOBEDUCATE in France, will take place on 10th May this year. Primary, middle and high school school will participate in this event, with a total of 35 teams and more than 100 students. Students learn to use LEGO ® Education SPIKE ™ Prime resources, preparing for the challenge during most of the year, with a bespoke training programme led by a specialist teacher. The goal is to provide a concrete and fun approach to STEAM¹ education and a very efficient introduction to coding. This will enable students to develop skills that are necessary in today's world and may inspire their future study and career pathways!

A practical teaching approach to STEAM education

As part of Globeducate, one of the world´s leading premium and bilingual international schools groups, with 55 schools and online programmes in nine countries, our schools in France benefit from a project launched with LEGO ® Education, using LEGO ® Education SPIKE ™ Prime resources. The programme brings together LEGO® bricks, a programmable multi-port Hub, sensors and motors and an extensive range of creative lesson plans.

The French education system continues to be structured around distinct "subjects", however we know that our students´ futures will largely be defined by cross-curricular skills that will enable them to address complex challenges creatively as a team. In this context, STEAM education which is now beginning to develop in international schools in France, and specifically in our Globeducate schools in Paris and the Côte d´Azur is a learning approach combining science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM[1]). The objective is to explore activities involving a wide range of cross-curricular concepts and content, in order to connect various fields of knowledge and, more importantly, to use them to solve problems and to work together drawing on the transformative power of play to improve learning. Through hands-on projects like this, students understand how useful these concepts are, which promote their motivation and encourage creativity, team work and exchanging ideas. 

The GLOBEDUCATE Robotics Challenge fits perfectly into the scope of STEAM education, as Boris Maloberti, Digital Project Manager at Globeducate France, explains: "This project is designed to develop the students' programming skills, while using cross-curricular skills such as communication, logic and creative responses to solve specific problems. This meets the requirements of the French national education system, particularly for the SI[2] and NSI[3]majors in high school. The idea is simple: the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ robot is provided in kit form, with a connector box, to which can be connected sensors and actuators used as various types of motors, visual display unit, an alarm, etc. From these blocks, each team must build a robot to complete a given mission. This is an excellent way to solve a problem step by step and experiment with learning through trial and error.” 

A gradual introduction to programming

In primary and middle school, students will be introduced to the principles of programming throughout the year, with uses of Scratch[4], which consists of assembling blocks to design the programme. Each team will follow a training programme with increasingly complex missions in order to progress with time. Then on 10 May, the teams will meet for a competition based on a theme entitled "Discovering the world". They will discover a new mat entirely designed for this event by Boris Maloberti. Each team will have to program and assemble their robot to carry out new challenges with increasingly difficult steps throughout the day. In high school, students will use PYTHON language, which is widely used in the scientific world.

A rank list displayed live on a large screen will allow them to constantly adjust their strategy regarding step options and score collection. The total number of points obtained throughout the day will allow certain teams to be ranked among the top three and win many prizes.

Boris Maloberti is delighted with the excitement generated by this challenge, which is being organised for the first time this year: "35 teams have registered, from 9 GLOBEDUCATE schools. This is already a great success. In the years to come, we would like to invite other schools abroad to participate, to add an international perspective to this challenge". 

 

List of participating schools:

School	Postal address	Total number of teams
HATTEMER	52, rue de Londres, 75008 Paris	4
EIB Grenelle	176, rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris	1
EIB Monceau (Van Dyck)	6, av. Van Dyck, 75008 Paris	5
EIB Lamartine	123, rue de la Pompe, 75116 Paris	3
Lycée EIB Étoile	9, rue Villaret de Joyeuse, 75017 Paris	5
ICS Cote d'Azur	ICS Cote d'Azur 245, route des Lucioles, 06560 Valbonne	3
International School of Nice	International School of Nice 15, av. Claude Debussy, 06200 Nice	3
Collège EIB Monceau	11 bis, rue Torricelli, 75017 Paris	6
Collège EIB de La Jonchère	Sente de Bournival, 78170 La Celle-Saint-Cloud	5
Total		35

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[1]  STEAM: Learning approach combining science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

[2] SI: Engineering Sciences

[3] NSI : Digital and Computer Sciences

[4] Scratch programming is based on a graphical interface that makes complicated computer coding languages unnecessary. Developed and maintained by the MIT Media Laboratory in Cambridge, Boston, it is an open source programme, perfectly tailored to beginners and children wishing to learn about programming