As with most of the lessons, the interactive ones tend to get the students the most interested. This whole unit has been very productive with the hands on aspect of building the robots. For the initial lesson we used the provided rubric and had a very spirited discussion regarding what was and wasn’t a robot. Many of the class had difficulty in admitting that they could qualify as robots.
The following interactive activities of trying to tie shoes using popsicle sticks and plyers and then doing it as a race provided both entertainment and a valuable lesson in the limitations of what robots are capable of doing. Indeed the rest of the unit really allowed my class to get into the limitations of what programming a robot will do in contrast to how complex even the simplest programs can be.