Instructor directions are listed below:
- Tell and show students what materials are available for them to use in the building of their robotic creation and any class rules when it comes to building.
- Review safety precautions when using the hot-glue gun.
- Emphasize that only teachers (or other adult) will use the utility knife. We request that they draw what they’d like to have cut before asking us.
- Remind students that balance is important when building their creation as a poorly balanced design will not work properly for very long.
- Emphasize that the goal of this activity is to have a moving representation of their IoT solution (or other goal set by the instructor). A moving creation that is poorly decorated is preferred over a beautifully decorated craft with no movement.
- Remind students that this is a team project and all members should have the opportunity to program and build the robotic creation.
- Remind students that they need to test their project and iterate, repeating as many steps of the Engineering Design Process as necessary.
- Encourage students to rely on each other and remind them that sometimes the fastest way to fix a problem is to ask for help from one of their peers.
- Encourage students to think like a scientist. Ask students to fix the problem by changing one thing at a time until they figure out the source of the problem.
- Allow students 30-45 minutes to build their projects (see Implementation for timing suggestions).
- Have all students test their project and discuss what they would do to improve their project if they had 3 more minutes to continue building.
- Give students 3-5 additional minutes to finish building their creations.
- Give students 5 minutes to clean up the space, returning unused materials and following instructor directions for further cleaning.
Be sure to emphasize that students should not take apart their projects as they will be sharing them with the class.
This part of the robotic creations activity is where the craziness begins. Students will use the materials you provide to them to bring their creations to life. While these steps are intended to be in a cycle: design, build, test, repeat, many students will get so focused on building that they will forget to test and re-design. Breaking up these three steps into specific times for designing, building, and testing, multiple times can help to focus students on this iterative process.
At the Thinkabit Lab, we give students 5 minutes to design their projects, then explain building rules, and then give 30-45 minutes to build. After build time, we ask all groups to test their projects to see if they work the way they want, and then discuss what they would do if they had 2 more minutes to build. After checking in with each group, we give them another 5 minutes to finish building.
We recommend using a timer on a highly visible screen (TV or projector) to show students exactly how much time is left and give reminders every 5-10 minutes.
To determine how much time to give for building, take the total time you have to build, and subtract 17 minutes (5 minutes to explain building rules, 5 minutes of extra build time, 5 minutes to clean, and 2 minutes for time lost in transition) to give you your final time. If you had 50 minutes to build, that would mean you would give the students 33 minutes of build time.
You may also want to consider developing guidelines for teamwork at this point which can help students work better together to accomplish their goal.