Legoland launched an innovative Lego building competition on 17 July 2012 at the Clementi Primary School challenging school children in Singapore to build national icons out of Lego bricks in celebration of Singapore’s 47th National Day.
This is the first Lego building contest of its kind in Asia and aims to inspire creative learning while developing national education values amongst pupils leading up to the 47th National Day celebrations on 9th August 2012.
Capturing the imagination of children, the contest is expected to be widely supported by teachers and parents alike amidst the growing recognition that children primarily think and learn through experiences rather than through abstract calculations and generalisations.
The competition is open to all school children in Singapore aged between four and 14 years old and will consist of three age specific contest categories:
Category A: 4 – 5 year old
Category B: 6 – 10 year old
Category C: 11 – 14 year old
The contest aims to foster student interaction and teamwork by asking schools to register teams. Each school is allowed to register five teams and each team can consist up to a maximum of 10 students. The contest will have two rounds and the winners of each category will eventually be picked based on a voting system.
In the first round, students will be asked to register their school and team, design and build their icons and upload the image to a dedicated micro-site by 17 August to be judged by a panel.
The professional judging panel will comprise of Legoland master model builders as well as selected senior management from the company. The micro-site will go live on the contest launch date, 17 July 2012.
On 19 August, once the selection process is complete, ten finalists will be announced and in the second round, they will be asked to promote their designs online.
Public voting to decide the winners will close on 31 August. On 3 September, the teams with the highest number of votes per contest category will be announced and every member of each winning team will receive five-day passes to Legoland Malaysia.
“Education has always been an important agenda for Legoland. Creativity, imagination, fun, learning, care and quality are pillars of the brand. We believe in play as an effective way of teaching children and our brand has constantly engaged in encouraging creative learning,” said Siegfried Boerst, General Manager of Legoland Malaysia.
“We believe Lego bricks are a great tool for improving learning as it helps students to be dynamic and it helps harness problem-solving skills. The bricks can help children develop life-long skills such as out-of-the-box thinking,” he added.
“Besides that, we also want to inspire children to develop love and ownership for their country from a young age and this is a great start,” he explained.
Echoing his thoughts, Principal of Clementi Primary School, Mrs. Chandler Jay Siva, claimed that the focus of education and role of educators are changing and 21st century learning is about providing children with opportunities to experiment with their surroundings as a form of problem solving.
It is about creativity and collaboration, motivation and self-direction. It is about improvisation and discovery, and interacting with meaningful tools that expand mental capacities.’
As such, Clementi Primary School has adopted Lego Education as one of the innovative platforms to promote creative, active and collaborative learning.
On another note, Legoland is set to open its doors officially on 15 September 2012 and has seven unique themed areas developed especially for children. Each area promotes fun in learning and combines the experience with interactive features.
