We came to the end of the SPARKreators project for this school year. After we donated 700 mBot robots to elementary schools across Bosnia and Herzegovina, taught 500 teachers who transferred their knowledge to the students, held a physical and online round of SPARKreators League with a total of 1500 students, we also held the final ceremony and winner announcement on 16 July at SPARK premises.
The aim of this league is that children from the earliest age acquire knowledge in so-called STEM occupations, which is actually an acronym composed of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. By learning through the game we want to motivate the children to acquire knowledge from the mentioned occupations. Because of the future of the youth, we carry out such a significant project and we hope to give them the most important tools for the future – self-awareness, critical thinking, technological literacy and modern approach to learning.
The competition was played in 29 regional centres across the country. The prizes (laptops, mBot and Abilix robots) for winners and hosts of the physical round were ensured by Premier bet shop, companies Editus and SPARK. There were 89 prizes in total, while all students and mentors got certificates for participation. You can check out the results on our website. Five most active schools in SPARKreators League have been awarded a bonus prize – the invitation to WER Open Croatia Cup in Zagreb organised by our partner IRIM. The main prize at this robotics competition will be a trip to World Cup in Shanghai. The schools that got the chance to participate are:
OŠ “Kiseljak” Kiseljak
JU “OŠ Branko Ćopić” – Prijedor
JU “OŠ Suljo Čilić” – Jablanica
“KŠC Sveti Pavao” – Zenica
Treća osnovna škola Ilidža – Ilidža
“From the very beginning, the transfer of knowledge and the initial donation given by IRIM to SPARK for launching the League, we were convinced that SPARK is an excellent partner for the implementation of the League in BiH. I was particularly pleased to see the best mentors in SPARKreators league and thank them for their enthusiasm and effort investing in youth education. In the next few days the League final will be held both in Croatia and in Serbia, and in September, IRIM will organise an advanced competition in the field of educational robotics – WER Croatia Open for participants from all three countries.“, said Paolo Zenzerović from IRIM.
We would like to thank IRIM and EXIT centre for the help with the realisation of the league and to all who have recognised the importance of introducing automation and programming in schools, decided to support us on this project and donated valuable awards. We can’t wait for the next school year and new SPARKreators League! Check out this short video clip.