Saturday SAVY, Week 3, Coding and Robotics (5th-6th)
Engaging Collaboration and Coding with Mars Rovers: Session 3 of SAVY-Coding and Robotics
Welcome to Session 3 of our exciting journey into the world of robotics! Over the last few Saturdays, we’ve witnessed an impressive display of creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork from our enthusiastic young robotics engineers. Today, the campers explored movement and sensor programming as students created Mars Rovers. As we progressed through this Saturday’s session, students continued to push the boundaries of their imagination, critical thinking, and problem solving.
Mars Rover and Competition Challenges
We started the day by reviewing the components of a robot. Then, we watched the creation of NASA’s Mars Rover-Perseverance. Students used what they observed to brainstorm Mars Rover ideas as they completed individual brainstorm sketches. After the sketches were completed, students collaborated with their teammates to determine one Mars Rover design to complete Mars Challenges on the robot table mat.
The Challenge: Students were tasked with building and creating a Mars Rover that was able to transport Mars rocks to different locations. To increase student curiosity and creativity, each team built a mission challenge that would be a component for our final challenge on the robot mat. After the design of our Mars missions was completed, students collaborated to create innovative rovers that would need to complete as many mission challenges as possible within the time limit. For this challenge, each team competed in two rounds that lasted for one and a half minutes. Mission completion points ranged from fifteen points to 25 points as students transported astronauts and retrieved “Mars rocks”. All teams were celebrated as we reflected on what strategies worked best and how designs could be modified to complete more missions. Additionally, the top scoring teams were recognized as we finished the competition. Students were tested with perseverance and patience as they worked together to complete the challenge. I was impressed with the level of coding and innovation completed by these young engineers!
At the end of the day, we organized our kits and reflected on our experiences with robots and coding. For students who have more interest in advanced coding and robotics, please continue to encourage your young engineers to explore with code.org! If they access studio.code.org, they will find several Python self-paced, fun activities along with other programming applications. Lego education is another fun resource that enhances STEM learning by exploring Lego Spike Prime robots. Happy Exploring!
It has been a pleasure working with your junior robotics engineer in Fall Savy! Please continue to explore the world of robots through robotsguide.com and code.org. Until next time, keep creating and keep exploring STEM/Robotics.
Best regards,
Ms. Young
Fall SAVY