| Session | Time - Activity |
|---|---|
| 1. |
10 min - Intro. Who we are. What we will be teaching. Class expectations. Brief explaination of the maze and line following challenges. 20 min - pre-test 10 min - What is a robot? Short demo 30 min - Have the students build a robot. Show them an example robot but give no plans. (Maybe have a few example programs already in the RCX so the robots do something when complete) 20 min - Discuss the robots that were built. Go over design principles. Introduce the reflection journals. |
| 2. |
30 min - Have students build the robot from the plans. 30 min - Explain what the RCX is, how it works and what it does. Introduce RoboLab, motors only. 20 min - Let student feel confortable with RoboLab and motors. Challenge: Have students make the robot go forward, backwards and turn. The whole program should be 10s or less. 10 min - Discussion: what worked, what didn't why. Have students write in their reflection journals. |
| 3. |
30 min - Introduce touch sensor, wait-for commands, modifiers, input/output and sounds. 40 min - Have students complete challenges. Challenge 1: Have students make the robot that goes forward untill it hits a wall, beeps and goes back. Challenge 2: Robot goes forward, hits a wall, beeps, (don't turn off motors), when the wall is removed it beeps again and spins in place. Handout 20 min - Discussion: what worked, what didn't, why. Have students write in their reflection journals. Possible questions for reflection journal: - What is cause and effect? - How do we see cause and effect? - Why is it important to have feedback and I/O? |
| 4. |
20 min - Introduce structures, loops and if/else. 45 min - Have students complete challenge. Challenge 1: Have students put the previous days challenge in a for loop that loops 4 times. Challenge 2: Extend challenge 1 so the robot beeps continuously while the sensor is pushed in. i.e. the robot should go forward till it hits a wall, start beeping, wait for the wall to be removed, stop beeping, spin, and repeate the process. Handout 15 min - Reflection, write in reflection journals. |
| 5. |
20 min - Continue with loops and if/else. As a class go over a semi-complex problem involving loops and if/else on the board. 60 min - Have students continue with previous days handout. If any students complete the handout, explain jumps to them and give them the Advanced Handout 10 min - Discuss and reflect. What worked what didn't? Why did some groups do better than others? What could each group have done to make their robot work better? |
| 6. |
20 min - Pass out robots and have students attach the light sensor. Show students how to view what the light sensor reads. Pass out various colors of paper and have the students take readings for each piece of paper. 15 min - Discuss what each group found. How dose the light sensor react to different colors? What is a light sensor and how does it work? Briefly go over wait-for, loops and if-else for the light sensor. 40 min - Have students complete the challenge and then allow them to play with light sensor. Challenge 1: Have students program the robot to go forward till it hits a black line, beep and go forward to the next black line. Challenge 2: Same as challenge 1 except the lines will be alternating green and black, the robot should make a different beep for each color. 15 min - Reflection, write in reflection journals. |
| 7. |
10 min - Explain Line following challenge.
60 min - Time for students to work on their robots for the challenge. Challenge: Make the robot follow a line in an oval. 10 min - Class discussion, what worked what didn't, why. 10 min - Reflection, write in reflection journals. |
| 8. |
10 min - Explain the final challenge. 70 min - Time for students to work on programming final challenge 10 min - Reflection, write in reflection journals. |
| 9. |
30 min - Time for students to work on final project. 40 min - Final Line challenge. 20 min - Post-test |