Solana Beach Online Scholars win creativity award in Lego League tourney

A team of Solana Beach School District students called The Winning Ducks won the creativity award in a FIRST LEGO League competition on April 18.

The award-winning Winning Ducks include Nathan, Serena, Alex and Siyona, who are third graders at Solana Highlands Elementary School and are currently enrolled in the district’s Online Scholars program; Faith, a fifth grader at Solana Pacific in Online Scholars; and Arjun, a first grader at Solana Highlands in Online Scholars.

Coached by parent Lili Hsieh, the team met approximately 12 times this year to collaborate together, design and build their lego structure.

The Winning Ducks team of Online Scholars.

(Courtesy)

In a normal year, the competition would be held at Legoland but due to the pandemic, it was held virtually. In the FIRST LEGO League Explore series, teams of students ages 6-10 focus on the fundamentals of engineering as they explore real-world problems, learn to design and code and create unique solutions made with LEGO bricks and powered by LEGO Education WeDo 2.0.

The students used critical thinking, coding and design skills to create a lego play structure that had components of accessibility, durability, environmental sustainability and beauty. The students coded certain parts of the lego structure to include a motorized fan and flag as part of their play structure. The LEGO building also had multiple obstacle courses designed by the kids.

As part of the competition, The Winning Ducks presented their LEGO building structure to a panel of judges and answered questions. They learned about their award in a virtual awards ceremony later in the day.

It was a fun experience for these Online Scholars to collaborate in person during this unusual school year.