National Robotics Week is dedicated to celebrating the incredible technologies that improve our lives. Some of the most popular robots are vacuum cleaners and kitchen gadgets, but we also have robots which are used to cut the lawn, clean the bottom of the pool and help our doctors save lives!
To help you celebrate and build real-world connections to robotics, we’ve compiled this list of resources from EiE® dedicated to robots, and teaching about robotics to use with your students.
From Engineering Everywhere™, For Grades 6–8:
Remote Sensing: Worlds Apart — How do scientists and engineers gather information from places in the solar system that are difficult to reach? In this unit, learners use the Engineering Design Process to design remote sensing devices that can help scientists learn about a newly discovered moon. Download a free unit.
From Engineering Adventures®, For Grades 3–5:
Liftoff: Engineering Rockets and Rovers — Jacob is at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory learning how to engineer rovers that can be used to explore faraway worlds. Meanwhile, India is learning about the trade-offs and variables involved in engineering a rocket as she blasts off to the International Space Station. Kids will engineer rockets and rovers to help India and Jacob explore several planets and moons in our solar system in this unit. Download a free unit.
From Engineering and Computer Science Essentials, For Grade 1:
Computer Science Unit: Programming Robots — In the story Omar’s Robotic Reach, when Omar loses a gem from his costume for a school performance, he programs a robot to retrieve it from under the stage. Students explore how to write an algorithm to tell a robot how to move, then investigate how to program a robot such as the Code & Go® Robot Mouse. They then follow the steps of the Engineering Design Process to imagine, plan, create, and improve a program to make a robot navigate a maze. Students extend their computational thinking skills to mathematical concepts as they practice strategies for addition and subtraction.
From Computer Science Essentials™, on Learn.EiE
Programming Robots - Check out this robotics related unit on Learn.EiE. Students learn about programming robots through activities, discussions, and readings designed to make the computer science concepts relevant to the age group. Students use the Engineering Design Process to create a maze and program a robot to navigate through it. Discover this unit and more, visit Learn.EiE.org and sign in or create an account to get started today.
From EiE® for Kindergarten, For Kindergarten:
Programming Robots to Recycle - In this unit, students become computer engineers as they work to clean up a park and keep trash out of the landfill. They’ll sort and count items and decide which ones can be recycled. Then, they’ll design a program for a robot that takes trash to the right bin. Users can choose a fully unplugged lesson, not using digital devices at all, or follow the plugged version using robots. Download a free sample.
From the Museum of Science, on Learn.EiE
Engineering for Nature - A video introduction shows how researchers at MIT use inspiration from fish to design an underwater robot. Students use similar ideas from nature to imagine technologies that keep humans cool when it is hot outside. Discover this unit and more, visit Learn.EiE.org and sign in or create an account to get started today.
What robotics resources are you looking for? How are you celebrating the technology behind robots this year? Let us know in the comments below! #RoboticsWeek #NationalRoboticsWeek
