Lego construction

Due to my participation in the Galileo theme housing program I am required to committee to six hours of community service as an assignment. I decided to register and complete my service hours for the First Lego League competition. This competition is set up to encourage young students to become engineers by letting them experience some basic computer and robotic programming. The object of the competition I s to complete a series of tasks with a programmed mind-storm Lego robot using simple software that comes with the robot set. I volunteered to work for the competition set up and to help build some of the Lego obstacles that had to be maneuvered around to or moved around. I was primarily interested with working with this project because when I was younger I loved playing with Legos, for nearly five years I requested a Lego set for either my birthday or Christmas when I was still a small kid. To be able to get my hands on some Legos again was so stress reliving. I spent nearly four hours working with about eight other students to construct a single Lego set. Each set include about 10 individual Lego sets that had to be constructed that together made up the obstacle course and assignment that the robot has to complete for the competition.

From the time I got to the room where the assembly was taking place till nearly several hours after I left I couldn’t help but keep a smile on my face. Even though I was doing something as simple as following directions from a colored block diagram I was so excited to have some Legos in my hand again. It was the best possible way to relieve some stress while enjoying myself in being a kid again. For the four hours that I spent that Sunday afternoon I got so much more out of it for myself than I would have sitting in my room getting my work finished for various classes. In the end I nearly got to put together one of each different set and at least worked on one of all the sets that I really wanted to make. Even with all the people that were there and the time we all spent there we still didn’t complete all the assembling so I might have another opportunity to work with some Legos again and even though I already worked all the parts I wanted it just feels good to act like a kid again while in college.