LEGOLAND® Malaysia Launch LEGO® Building Craze To Construct National Icons For Malaysian Schools

Performers from SK (P) Sultan Ibrahim School with Mr Abdul Rahman Bin Abdul Rahim (JPNJ Johor Education Department), Mr Siegfried Boerst (General Manager, LEGOLAND® Malaysia and Mr Johari Bin Suhadak (District of Education Johor Bahru)

Johor Bahru, 17^th July 2012 – An innovative LEGO® building competition challenging school children nationwide to build national icons out of LEGO bricks was launched today at SK (P) Sultan Ibrahim School by LEGOLAND®.

This is the first LEGO building contest of its kind in Asia and it is set to take Malaysia by storm. The contest aims to inspire creative learning and develop national education values amongst pupils. As well as capturing the imagination of children, the contest is expected to be widely supported by teachers and parents alike, amidst the growing recognition that children primarily think and learn through experiencesrather than through abstract calculations and generalisations.

 The competition is open to all school children in Malaysia and Singapore aged between four and fourteen years old and will consist of  three age specific contest categories: Category A: 4 - 5 year olds, Category B: 6 - 10 year olds, Category C:  11 - 14 year olds. The contest aims to foster student interaction and teamwork by asking schools to register teams. Each school is allowed to register five teams and each team can consist of up to a maximum of 10 students. The contest will have two rounds and the winners of each category will eventually be picked based on a voting system. In Round 1, students will be asked to register their school and team, design and build their icons and upload the image to a dedicated microsite by the 17^th August to be judged by a panel.  The professional judging panel will comprise of LEGOLAND master model builders as well as selected senior management from the company. The microsite will go live on contest launch date, 17th July 2012.

On the 19^th August 2012, once the selection process is complete, ten finalists will be announced and in Round 2 they will be asked to promote their designs online. Public voting to decide the winners will close on the 31^st August 2012. On the 3^rd September 2012 the teams with the highest number of votes per contest category will be announced and every member of each winning team will receive 5 day passes to LEGOLAND Malaysia. “Education has always been an important agenda for LEGOLAND. Creativity, imagination, fun, learning, care and quality are pillars of the LEGOLAND brand. We believe in play as an effective way of teaching children and our brand has always engaged in encouraging creative learning,” said Siegfried Boerst, General Manager of LEGOLAND Malaysia.

He added “we believe LEGO bricks are a great tool for improving learning as it helps students to be dynamic and it helps harness problem solving skills. LEGO bricks can help children develop life-long skills such as out-of-the-box thinking. Besides that, we also want to inspire children to develop love and ownership for their country from a young age and this is a great start.”

LEGOLAND is set to open its doors officially on 15^th September 2012 and has seven unique themed areas developed especially for children. Each area promotes fun in learning and combines the experience with interactive features. For further information on the contest and the Park, please click here: www.legoland.com.my/contest.

-Legoland Malaysia.