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This LEGO robotics competition is building future engineers one brick at a time  February 19, 2026

 

Hello and buonasera from Cortina, Italy. Everyone, happy Thursday. Everyone, happy Friday Eve.

 

buonasera 意大利文中是“晚安”的意思

 

I learned a new Italian phrase today. Mamma mia che buono. Oh my goodness, how good.

 

Mamma mia che buono 我的天啊，这太美味了！(意大利文)

 

Real good. I'm Coy Wire. Hope you're having an awesome day. Let's get you your news.

 

This week marks the start of a very special time for one of the world's largest religions. On Tuesday evening, many Muslims around the world kicked off Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar.

 

Ramadan [ˈræmǝˌdɑn] n. 回教历的九月（斋月）

 

So Ramadan Mubarak, or blessed Ramadan to all of you who celebrate. During this holy month, more than two billion Muslims around the world will fast from sunrise to sunset each day, abstaining from food and water as an act of worship and self-discipline.

 

fast [fæst] v. 禁食；斋戒

abstain [ǝbˈstеn] v. 戒；避免；避开

 

The Ramadan fast is one of the five pillars of Islam, and it's broken each evening with a communal meal known as Iftar, where family and friends come together to eat and pray.

 

pillar [ˈpɪlɚ] n.【喻】栋梁，台柱

Iftar [ˈɪftɑr] n. 开斋饭. 是穆斯林在伊斯兰历九月（斋月）期间，每天黄昏、日落后（即昏礼后）享用的第一顿餐食，用于终止从日出到日落的禁食

 

Ramadan doesn't fall on the same day every year. Rather, it follows the sighting of a new crescent moon during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. This sometimes means that different countries around the world will observe its start on different days.

 

crescent [ˈkrɛsṇt] n. 新月；弦月

 

And if you're feeling like this week has been chock-full of holidays, you are not imagining things. This year, Ramadan shared the calendar with not one, but two other major events.

 

chock-full [ˈtʃɑkˈfʊl] adj. 塞滿的

 

The Lunar New Year, which we told you about earlier this week, and Fat Tuesday, which marks the end of Mardi Gras and ushers in the Christian season of Lent.

 

Lent [lɛnt] n.（基督教）四旬斋，大斋期（指复活节前的四十天）

 

Now to some golden momentsfrom here at the Winter Olympics in Italy. Norwegian skier Johannes Husflat Klebo had already become the most successful winter Olympian of all time earlier this week, but he was not done. The powerhouse added another gold medal to his resume, winning the men's cross-country team sprint.

 

powerhouse [ˈpaʊɚˌhaʊs] n. 精力旺盛的人

sprint [sprɪnt] n. 短距离赛跑

 

It's his fifth gold medal of these games alone and the 10th of his career. There's simply Norway. I could match that.

 

And in the skies over Cortina, it is a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a pair of gravity defying gold medals for team China.

 

Xu Mengtao defended her 2022 aerial skiing gold medal, becoming the first athlete ever to win multiple golds in an aerial event. And snowboarder Su Yiming clinched gold in men's slopestyle on his 22nd birthday. Talk about a perfect present, but maybe the biggest headline of the day, a golden comeback for team USA's Mikaela Shiffrin.

 

aerial skiing 自由式滑雪

slopestyle 坡面障碍技巧

 

She conquered the women's slalom in sensational style to take home her first Olympic gold medal in eight years. First medal of any kind, rather. After winning gold at just 18 years old in the 2014 games, Schifrin missed the podium the last two games.

 

slalom [ˈslɑlǝm] n. 障碍滑雪赛

sensational [sɛnˈsеʃǝnǝl] adj. 引起轰动的

 

Now she's found her way back to the top, showing why she is winningest alpine skier of all time.

 

Speaking of golden moments, I got the chance to catch up with Schifrin's teammate, Breezy Johnson. Johnson not only won her first career gold medal at these games, she also got engaged, but reaching this surreal stage of her career was far from a breeze.

 

breeze [briz] n.【美】【口】轻而易举的事

 

Here's what she told me about how she's handled all the adversity along the way.

 

adversity [ǝdˈvɝsǝtɪ] n. 逆境

 

Downhill skiing is often called the most dangerous event at the Winter Games. If fear had a voice at the top of the course, what would you say back to it?

 

downhill [ˈdaʊnhɪl] n.（滑雪的）滑降（竞赛）

 

I always say that fear has to come with you.

 

You can't kick it out of the car. You just put it in the backseat.

 

Ski racing careers, they're full of highlights.

 

They're also full of setbacks. You missed the Beijing Olympics due to an injury. What has adversity taught you that maybe winning never could?

 

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, yeah, people are often jealous of the amazing moments, the wins at the Olympics, the world championships, but rarely are people jealous of the path that it took to get you there.

 

I think you really have to find joy and meaning in those hard moments. Being brave enough to try at something that many people just aren't willing to take the risk to do, to fail at, is what I find meaning in, and it keeps me going in those tough moments and is, to me, the real accomplishment.

 

Pop quiz, hot shot.

 

Which city is China's largest by population and a major global financial center?

 

Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, or Tianjin?

 

If you said Shanghai, ding ding, you're correct. With a population of about 24 to 25 million people, it is also home to the world's longest metro system.

 

China saw an increase in new marriages last year after introducing incentives to encourage couples to wed.

 

incentive [ɪnˈsɛntɪv] n. 刺激；鼓励；动机

wed [wɛd] v. 娶；嫁；与……结婚

 

It's all part of Beijing's plan to reverse its declining birth rate a decade after the government ended its one-child policy. CNN's Simone McCarthy explains the reasons behind the uptick.

 

uptick [ˈʌptɪk] n. 发展; 上升

 

China changed one rule and saw a major rise in marriages last year.

 

Marriage registries across the country, including the one behind me here in Beijing, have seen a lot of bookings. China's government is pushing hard to encourage more young people to get married as Beijing tries to reverse a declining birth rate that could hurt its economy.

 

Last year, Chinese officials made a major change.

 

For the first time, people can get married anywhere in the country. That means couples living in major cities don't have to return to their hometowns and can even choose any destination for their marriage.

 

We are working in Beijing.

 

It's really convenient. We don't have to go back to our hometown. Right here where we work, we are able to complete all the procedures.

 

And there are signs that's paying off. China last year recorded 6.76 million marriages. That's 650,000 more than the previous year when marriages hit a record low.

 

Now marriages have generally declined over the past decade and the 2025 numbers are still less than just a couple years ago.

 

Young people typically say that economic strain as well as wanting to focus on their career and independence are reasons to delay or avoid getting married altogether.

 

strain [strеn] n. 负担，沉重压力

 

A lot of stress because of things like work and family, but getting married, that's something two people, if they're meant to be or like each other, they'll surely get married.

 

Next up, LEGOto a competition that had elementary and middle school teams stacking up solutions and clicking robots into motion using LEGOs. And we were there as everything came together piece by piece. Check it out.

 

It's the moment these young engineers have worked for. Months of calculations, coding, and collaboration prepared teams of elementary and middle school students to compete at the annual FIRST LEGO League State Championship at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

 

This is like their Super Bowl of robotics.

 

It's a lot of time to STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, because your students are doing some problem solving and innovating. They have to come up with some unique ways to try to solve that problem.

 

Each team carefully created robots out of LEGOs that compete in intricate and timed missions inspired by this year's archaeological theme, Unearthed.

 

unearth [ʌnˈɝθ] v. 发现；揭露; （从地下）发掘

 

In the judging room, teams explain their designs and coding decisions with creative presentations.

 

This year is our largest state championship we've ever had. We went from 24 teams to 60 teams.

 

What might look like simple LEGO bricks are actually the building blocks for engineering and leadership training.

 

building block 基础材料

 

These are specialized robotics kits that are allowing the students to really dive deeply into some of those important skills that we see are going to be needed in the workforce today, like coding, mechanical engineering, but more importantly arguably than that is what we call core values. Teaching that teamwork, teaching leadership.

 

You'll see a student or a team that's really struggling, another team will come up and they'll help them.

 

Every team is unique.

 

Our robot is named R67 because we thought it was really funny.

 

We have spunky pinkies.

 

Rocking custom outfits, team names and catchphrases while they present their projects.

 

catchphrase [ˈkætʃˌfrеz] n. 標語

 

I love that robotics allows them to explore things that they never thought possible, to grow, to make mistakes.

 

They've made so many mistakes and we love it. We celebrate every mistake and that's what it's about is learning how to persevere and how to continue and how to grow.

 

persevere [ˌpɝsǝˈvɪr] v. 坚持不懈；不屈不挠

 

These students not only build robots and code, they also are tasked with creating solutions for real world problems.

 

We were talking about mobility issues and people have hand tremors and stuff and how those people don't always feel like they can follow their dreams of being an archaeologist and they said well why don't we solve that problem and so they've actually done a ton of research and they've developed a glove that actually we've proven reduces tremor.

 

archaeologist [ˌɑrkɪˈɑlǝdʒɪst] n. 考古学家

 

For some teams this state championship is just the next step. The top performers will move on to the international competitions.

 

The points may stack up on the board but the skills they stack up for life.

 

Definitely the ability to, like, kind of communicate with others, and, like, cooperation, and be able to, like, go out and present ideas to others, and to, like, connect with others. It feels like a superpower, honestly.

 

Being able to learn something like this so young, it's a gift.

 

Today's story getting a 10 out of 10. Londoners combining two of my very favorite things, competition and food.

 

Feast your eyes on the annual pancake race. In full costume they sprint through London, frying pans in hand, stopping only to flip a flapjack and then keep on running.

 

flapjack [ˈflæpˌdʒæk] n.【美】烙饼；煎饼；早餐时食用的一种薄松饼

 

It marks Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Day, marking the last indulgent hurrah before Lent begins.

 

shrive [ʃraɪv] v. 听取忏悔而赦免其罪

last hurrah 最后的努力（尤指政界人物的最後一次競選活動）

hurrah [hǝˈrɑ] n. 叫好声；欢呼声

 

Some spectators come for the competition, others just for the carbs. Winners go home with trophies and frying pans, presumably also full of pride and pancakes. Hey what's a panda used to make pancakes? A pan, duh.

 

presumably [prɪˈzumǝblɪ] adv. 据推测；大概，可能；想必

 

Time for some two shout outs today. First one's going to Janesville, Wisconsin. Miss Nelson at Craig High School, thank you for following us on our CNN10 Instagram.

 

And this one goes to Missman Select Grant Middle School in Fairview Heights, Illinois. Rise up and mamma mia che buono. See you tomorrow from Cotina.

 

Coytina? I'm Coy Wire and we are CNN10.