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UPC Manresa hosts FIRST® LEGO® League

On Saturday, 8 February, eleven teams from all over Catalonia gathered at UPC Manresa to participate in the FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) tournament in the Challenge category.

Around seventy young people and children from different educational centers, aged between 10 and 16, attended the event, accompanied by their respective coaches and legal guardians. The teams came from Barcelona, ​​Terrassa, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Bellaterra, and Manresa.

Bringing FLL to UPC Manresa has provided students with this unique experience, aiming to foster innovation, teamwork, and a competitive spirit within a learning environment. This initiative also strengthens Manresa as a benchmark in promoting STEAM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics), attracting talent, and generating a positive impact on the local educational and business community.

The FIRST® LEGO® League is an educational programme for teams of participants aged 6 to 16, divided into the Explore, Challenge, and Discover categories. Its objective is to promote scientific and technological vocations through meaningful learning experiences based on the STEAM areas and educational robotics.

Currently, this educational project is present in more than a hundred countries and has a variable duration (between 12 and 16 weeks). It consists of an initial phase of 2 to 4 months, during which teams work independently in their respective educational centres, followed by a one-day tournament as the final phase.

Based on an annual challenge on a theme and revolving around a robot designed and built by the teams, three major challenges are set for the students:

• Developing a research project that identifies and solves a problem in the current world, related to the suggested theme.
• The programming, designing and construction of a robot based on LEGO® pieces that is capable of overcoming the greatest number of tests on a competition canvas.
• The challenge of participating in a qualifying event and a final tournament that tests their skills and provides a rewarding experience where technology takes centre stage.

Local events, such as the one that has been carried out at the UPC Manresa, mark the end of the educational programme and allow them to pay tribute to the months of work behind the participants’ projects.

The promoter of this programme in Spain is the non-profit association Ingeniera Soy and the Manresa tournament has been possible thanks to PUCRA Manresa, a new robotics association of the UPC Manresa, established in 2024 and formed by students of the University.

PUCRA (Robotics Association at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech) is an association of the UPC Manresa campus, which adopts the name of the homonymous one created on the EEBE campus of the UPC, and whose objective is to develop projects in two different areas of action: educational and competitive at the university level.

In line with educational projects, they want to carry out scientific and technological dissemination activities and create opportunities to bring technology and STEAM disciplines closer to children and young people in a playful way, especially those with socioeconomic difficulties. They will hold specific workshops such as this year’s TecnoBages, in which they are already working, and longer-term extracurricular educational robotics activities.

On the other hand, in terms of competition projects, they want to participate in VEX U, a university robotics league with an international scope to introduce themselves to competitive environments, and later expand beyond this. Examples of other competitions and contests in which they would like to participate are the European Rover Challenge (ERC) and Apertix (formerly ROBOCAT).

They seek to be a diverse and interdisciplinary team, made up of students from all grades of the school, and they want to be able to bring variety and diversity to the activities carried out on campus. That is why they are looking for committed people, with plural and different specializations and interests. The prize to the winner was presented by Javier Butragueño, CEO of Ingenier@ Soy. Prizes were also presented by Jordi Valiente, dean of CETIM; José Miguel Giménez, director of UPC Manresa; Pere Palà, representing the European MERIT project coordinated by UPC Manresa that promotes the training of society in digital skills; Rosa Giralt, event manager of the event; Xènia Mata, general coordinator of the event and co-founder of PUCRA Manresa; and Joan Paré, head of referees and co-founder of PUCRA Manresa.