The Lego Challenge – Build a stadium

Can your pupils build a stadium to order and find the cheapest possible design, asks Rob Widger, LEGO Education Training Manager...

Having spent the summer marvelling at the Olympic stadium, children will know that a well constructed arena is at the heart of any sporting spectacle.

The opportunity to build their own stadium from LEGO will present quite a challenge, requiring maths, D&T and problem solving skills to be put to good use. It is, however, an accessible activity and one in which children will quickly become absorbed.

The challenge is simple. Children have to:

• Build a stadium seating area that adheres to specific criteria.
• Work out the price of one block in the stadium. (Who can build the cheapest structure?)
• Decide how to replicate this across a whole stadium.

1 Connect

Start a discussion on events children may have attended at a stadium. Ask them what considerations need to be made when designing such a structure. Points you might want to raise include:

• Every stadium needs somewhere for fans to sit. Due to health and safety laws in the UK, stadiums must be allseater so there cannot be any standing areas.
• Show images of different stadiums. Ask pupils what considerations designers should be aware of.
• Draw out the need for adequate exits and entrances and room between seats – spectators do not want to be squashed.

Now set the challenge: can pupils build the cheapest possible stadium whilst keeping within the design parameters?

2 Construct

It helps to prepare a small section of a stadium block as an example for the children. Discuss the need to keep pricing as low as possible (fewer bricks means a cheaper stadium). This brings in a strong maths focus as well as ensuring pupils are thinking through the process and looking at the challenges faced with any construction project.

Point out the design criteria. You can set your own, but the following provides a good foundation:

• Each stand must be built on a 16x16 base plate.
• Each stadium block must be four rows high and each row four studs deep.
• Each stadium block must have a green staircase built into the design. Each row of the staircase should be four studs deep and four studs wide.
• The block, once completed, will seat 12 minifigures (four rows of three), and incorporate a green staircase.

3 Contemplate

Once their first stadium block is constructed, ask pupils to calculate the costing of their design. Challenge them on how can they reduce costs without compromising safety. This is an excellent way to get them to rethink their design and focus on all the different options they have for lowering costs. Prices for all bricks can be found on the LEGO website under ‘pick a brick’ (tinyurl.com/tppickabrick).

Most pupils will build a stadium that is completely solid. They will use system bricks and build one on top of the other - a very expensive way of building.

It is a great idea to show students an example of what is behind actual stadium seating and how space can be used.

Discuss with pupils how creating empty spaces saves money but doesn’t have to compromise on quality and design. Now ask the children to modify their stadium block to reduce costs.

4 Continue

For those pupils who have progressed quickly, or as an additional activity, there are a whole host of areas for continued learning.

How can children improve their design by adding entrances behind each block? Talk about why they should do this, covering areas such as seating spectators quickly and safely and ensuring people can make a swift exit in the event of fire, etc.

Get the whole group to work together to use their seating areas to build an entire stadium. Depending on your pupils, you will decide how strict the design criteria should be. Do you make every stadium block look exactly the same or give children some flexibility? Pupils have often come up with some unique features when I have given them creative freedom.

One other point: students of all ages love to decorate their seating area with minifigures, so just make sure you have plenty of these!

A student activity card is available online (http://www.teachprimary.com/legochallenge1).

This provides extra fun and engagement as pupils have to really think carefully how to improve their design