School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. DBA FIRST® Long Island, has announced that FIRST (for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has transitioned to three new divisions in FIRST LEGO League: Discover (pre-K to first grade), Explore (grades 2-4) and Challenge (grades 4-8).

Discover, for children ages 4 to 6, is a playful introductory STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) program that ignites their natural curiosity and builds their habits of learning with hands-on activities in the classroom and at home using LEGO® DUPLO® bricks.

In Explore, teams of students ages 6-10 focus on the fundamentals of engineering as they explore real-world problems, learn to design and code and create unique solutions made with LEGO bricks and powered by LEGO® Education WeDo 2.0.

Friendly competition is at the heart of Challenge, as teams of students ages 9-14 engage in research, problem-solving, coding and engineering — building and programming a LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime of LEGO MINDSTORMS® robot that navigates the missions of a robot game. As part of Challenge, teams also participate in a research project to identify and solve a relevant real-world problem.

FIRST LEGO League has released the challenges for the 2020-21 season: PLAYMAKERSSM for Discover, and Explore, and RePLAYSM, for the Challenge Division. This season, students are stepping into the world of sports, play and fitness — moving, collaborating, competing and celebrating. They will explore the activities we can do in different spaces for play and how we can ensure that our games and activities are fun and accessible for everyone involved.

FIRST Long Island is excited about the three divisions. “They will inspire youth to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding and design skills through hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning and robotics,” FIRST said in a statement.