The Lego Olympics are coming to town.
Hundreds of young pupils from throughout the district will vie for the title of Lego Olympic champion and a prize that will include boxes of the plastic toys.
The organisers of the Lego Olympics, the Rotary Club of Timaru South, are looking for the qualities found in all athletes - teamwork, leadership, initiative and a good dollop of social skills.
The event, which will be held on Saturday and Sunday, July 5 and 6, will be run along the lines of the sports days Rotary clubs hold each year in March.
It will be a team-based interschool challenge. Rotary South member Stuart Croft, of Timaru, devised the Timaru version of the contest. Schools could enter teams of three in three age groups - junior (year 3 and 4), middle (year 5 and 6) and senior (year 7 and 8). The maximum number of teams in each level would be 32. Schools could have more than one team in each level but total numbers were limited to 32.
‘‘The goal will be for each team to build a model in a given time, probably about 10 minutes. A topic or theme would be drawn just before each heat and judged at the end of the allotted time,'' Mr Croft said.
Examples of themes included bridges, rockets and robots, he said.
‘‘Four teams will compete in each heat, with winning teams going through to the next round.
‘‘Each team would have an identical bucket of Lego to work with and each heat or theme would have a different topic or theme,'' Mr Croft said.
An individual display competition would also be held. In this section, children could make models at home or school.
‘‘These models will be displayed over the two days and judged during this time. The winner would be announced on Sunday afternoon after the Olympic finals.
‘‘Models could be dropped off at Bluestone School on Friday, July 4, between 3pm and 6pm, or before 9am on Saturday, July 5,'' he said.
Rotary South president Jim Garden, of Timaru, said the club was excited about bringing the Lego contest to South Canterbury.
‘‘Rotary is well known for its commitment to young people, with the various exchanges we run nationally, the science school programme where we send selected secondary school students to Dunedin for science-based study and workplace placement schemes.
‘‘We expect the Lego Olympics to be very popular. We already know that Albury School is sending in a bus load of pupils to compete. We are anticipating hundreds at the weekend event,'' Mr Garden said.
Lego consists of interlocking plastic bricks, gears, axles and various other parts. It was originally designed in the 1940s in Europe.
Readers interested in finding out more about the Lego Olympics can contact Stuart Croft on (03) 688-4250.
