OVERVIEW

Activity Overview:

Students will design a robot to orbit the moon in conjunction with their ELA class reading the book Hidden Figures.

Meta description

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Reading/Language Arts
• Grade Level : 3-5, 6-8
• Computer Science Domains:
  • Computing Systems, Algorithms and Programming
• Computer Science Principles:
  • Collaborating Around Computing, Recognizing and Defining Computational Problems, Developing and Using Abstractions, Creating Computational Artifacts, Testing and Refining Computational Artifacts, Communicating About Computing
• Materials:
  • Lego Mindstorms (I am using the NXT version)
• Considerations:
  • Allow more time than you think you need. Also, when working in groups there is always one student who will attempt to run the design and coding. I make my students take turns.

Lesson Plan

Overview

Students will design a robot to orbit the moon in conjunction with their ELA class reading the book Hidden Figures.

ASSESSMENT PRE/POST-TEST

What information do you need to successfully orbit the moon? What challenges did you face that you think were similar to the challenges experienced by NASA? How important is math when programming your robot to orbit the moon?

OBJECTIVES

Students can successfully use NXT programming to program their robot. Students can identify issues with robot design and attempt to modify the robot to address them.

CATCH/HOOK

I usually have a robot ready and show them how it runs. I ask them how they think I programmed the robot to make it do certain actions.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

Fifth and Sixth Grade students are reading Hidden Figures as part of their ELA curriculum. To go along with this, I will have students design a basic robot with Lego Mindstorms. They will then be given an object (in this case an ottoman) to represent the moon and a starting position (in this case a bookshelf). They must successfully program their robot to go to the ‘moon’, circle it twice, and return to ‘Earth.’ They will have two days to work on programming and identify issues with the robot. They will then be allowed to redesign their robot and attempt to orbit the moon again.

Supplements

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REVIEW

What challenges did you face when designing and programming your robot? What would you do differently? If the moon were moving (orbiting) how would that make your calculations harder?

STANDARDS