Wednesday 18th January 2006

Ford Turn to Lego for Solutions

Building blocks for the future?

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Ford engineers will swap car panels for LEGO bricks when the car market leader hosts this year's FIRST LEGO League final at the Henry Ford College in Loughborough.

Ford and BP are national sponsors of the League, which is for school teams of nine to 16 year olds who use LEGO equipment to meet an annual challenge.

Engineers and designers who hone the look and performance of Ford's future vehicles will be at the Leicestershire college on Saturday (21st) to coach teams in the final of this annual challenge. More than 250 teams, who began competing in the FIRST LEGO League in September 2005, have been reduced to 25 through a series of regional heats.

This year's challenge is called Ocean Odyssey, requiring teams to build a model ocean-going craft to perform tasks such as:

• Pick up and launch a submarine from a platform
• Service an oil pipeline
• Release a trapped dolphin from a cradle

All schools which entered the FIRST LEGO League received a 32 square feet mat depicting an ocean scene. LEGO models represent a ship wreck, oil pipeline, reef and sharks. One of the LEGO bricks used to build the craft contains a computer chip, which teams programme to guide the vessel around the mat performing tasks against the clock.

Dunton's engineering director Malcolm Thomas commented, "The skills and techniques learnt by participants are the same as those used daily by Ford engineers at Dunton, Halewood and Loughborough."

The best three teams from Saturday's final will represent the UK at a European final event in Eindhoven, Holland, on May 5-7. A further two teams will be invited to a world festival in Atlanta, USA, on April 27-29.

Links

• Official Lego Website
• A Lego Car
• Volvo made of Lego

 

[lockup]

Oopsy, your link to the Official Lego Wbesite doesn't.

[hayesey]

only for 16 year olds? I want a go.

[zebedee]

"The skills and techniques learnt by participants are the same as those used daily by Ford engineers at Dunton, Halewood and Loughborough."

wonder how often the Ford engineers have to release trapped dolphins from cradles in Loughborough. It would still be a fair old crawl for flipper before he found the sea from there...

[Gentelman]

Does this mean Lego will have to stop making the Ferrari tie-ins?

[alextgreen]

I was interested up until I saw the 9-16 bit. Would love to see if I've still got my 'yaaaaay let's build s**t' streak.

[zevans]

[quote"The skills and techniques learnt by participants are the same as those used daily by Ford engineers at Dunton, Halewood and Loughborough."
[/quote]

I know several Ford owners who would say that explains a lot...

[hair bear]

I'm an engineer at Dunton and I can't remember the last time I used my many years of Lego experience in my day to day job.

Unless MT is implying those frustrating loops of red tape and indecision that I encounter daily, are some how linked to those missing Lego pieces that usually ended up in my mum's hoover bag!!

>> Edited by hair bear on Thursday 19th January 12:51

>> Edited by hair bear on Thursday 19th January 15:02

[huge]

Nothing new in that....Volvo have been using Lego Blocks as their inspiration for decades

[huge]

Nothing new in that....Volvo have been using Lego Blocks as their inspiration for decades