This afternoon our two teams of Year 5’s who are taking part in the FIRST LEGO League competition were treated to a (virtual) VIP tour inside an Amazon Warehouse.
As part of their Cargo Connect challenge for the competition, they are researching more about how goods are shipped around the world and delivered, in order to hopefully find some creative solutions to improve these processes.
As well as being given a tour around the different departments, from ordering & picking to packaging & shipping, the children were given the chance to ask some questions to a trio of Amazon Engineers.
Throughout the tour the students were jotting down questions on some post-it notes and by the end they had amassed quite a collection! Luckily there was plenty of time for the Q+A and lots of our questions got answered.
Here are some of the interesting facts we learnt during the tour:
“I learnt that the items are stored randomly in the warehouses, with robots being used to pick the items” – Ethan
“The SLAM machine that puts the label and address on the packages doesn’t actually touch the package at all – it drops the label on top” – Amelie
“The shortest delivery was done in under 30 minutes and they use satellite images to check addresses and to update their maps when new roads are built.” – Sienna
“They use algorithms to help find and move parcels, with robots following QR codes on the floor” – Caio
