With all these new technologies that are designed and targeted for our younger generation, it seems that an important generation has been lost in the process: senior citizens. Taking this into account, First Lego League (FLL) designed a project that would help students bond with senior citizens, them to create technological solutions and promote inspiration for our future generation.
For the 2012, FLL sponsored the Senior Solutions Project, where students had to find a senior citizens partner, learn about the problems faced by seniors and create robotic solutions to help solve a problem, like dispensing medications.
The FLL, an international competition for students ages 9 to 16 years old in the US, Canada and Mexico, is designed to foster a deeper understanding about science and technology at a young ages.
Students attend FLL team meetings after school where they are introduced into the robotic programs, where they work together with other students to program an autonomous robot to score points on the playing surfaces and create solutions to a problem designed for each specific project
The Pill Popper 1.0 was designed to help senior citizens organize the medications they take, as there is more than one for different days of the week. Other problems students focused on was helping senior citizens stay fit and socially connected, or simple tasks like turning off the stove burners.
Through these programs student’s minds are stimulated through activity, social understanding and technological discovers. Some students have become so inspired from FLL competitions that they want to patent and protect their ideas, which is the whole philosophy behind the program.
By promoting the importance of acknowledging our senior citizens and integrating them into technology, FLL is doing more than just promoting volunteer work. Rather, they are creating a core set of values for our future generation of creators that will ultimately shape our future.
In the past, FLL competitions have been based on subjects like food safety, nanotechnology, climate and quality of life for the handicapped population. As the topics change each year students are exposed to a variety of potential career paths in different fields of science, technology and engineering.
Parents try to prepare their children for the future by helping them find a talent, and then paying for a lot of after school activities and private lessons. But in a world that is being drowned by technology and its new developments, it would make sense that a child would be more successful learning how to promote technology discoveries, rather than taking guitar lessons, right?
For more information about FLL or to discover how you can be a part of the program, click here.
Edited by
Carlos Olivera
