Hi, I am going to be teaching this lesson at the beginning of next week. I have 55 minute classes and we need to finish lesson 1 (I estimate that it will take about 20 minutes to do so)… so I have 35 minutes left.
Here is what I am thinking: I will have them get into pairs, chose their objects and create just the binary messages on the first day. Each group will share and then spend the first part of the next day doing the other challenges (sending 4, 8, n-messages).
My questions: If you have taught the lesson already, do you agree that this is a good stopping point? Also, do you think just having them switch to 4 messages would be sufficient to get the idea across or is it worth taking the time to complete all of the challenges?
Hi @julie.jarvis, I hope this finds you in time. I think your idea sounds like a good one! I think giving them 8 states is a great “thought experiment” - that is actually how I do it in my class. I don’t think you need to do all the challenges to get the objectives. I would also point out the “Activity Goal” callout box in the lesson plan which states " The purpose of the whole activity is to build toward an understanding that, from an engineering perspective, the simplest way to physically send an infinite number of messages over some distance is to make a binary message device, and to send unique sequences of binary states. This is how the internet at physical level actually works." I think students can see that with the 2 and 4 options.
Happy coding!