FIRST LEGO League is an international STEM program for young people in 4th - 8th grade. Using robotics as a tool and competition as a motivator, young people across the world gain innovative, problem-solving, and teamwork skills. Owing to COVID restrictions, this competition was held at 26 West Entrepreneurship Center on the SCF campus, while spectators, family, and school officials watched the live stream within FRAME on the 1st floor of the Center.
This was a powerful example of using the metaverse to support hybrid, inclusive events.
Teams gathered to compete with their coaches, while their parents, friends, and school administrators watched the competitions within FRAME. Desh Bagley is the Director of the SCF Coding Academy, as well as, the coordinator for the FIRST LEGO League program in the West Florida Region (http://coding.scf.edu/ and http://suncoastfll.org/). She recommended using FRAME to have a more immersive experience as compared to other live broadcasts. While in FRAME, spectators could learn more about FIRST LEGO League and State College of Florida resources such as certification workshops, coding bootcamps, and entrepreneurship programs.
Desh Bagley also uses FRAME to teach hybrid summer camps and tech courses. She gives presentations during conferences using FRAME. And finally, her students become creators and use Frame to design their own virtual worlds filled with 3D models, images, movies, audio, and text.
