During the first week of robotics, the 1st and 2nd grade teams got to know their coaches, chose their team names, set team agreements, and did two different teamwork activities.

On Monday/Tuesday the main activity was using rubberbands to stack cups.

On Thursday/Friday 1st and 2nd grade did the annual lower team egg drop activity! In teams of 2-3 students designed and built a parachute with which they could safely drop an egg from the 2nd story of school without the egg breaking. In this activity students used the engineering design process to plan, design, and build their parachutes. As well, by working as a team students must negotiate their ideas, compromise, and delegate. Lastly, students worked on managing emotions if their parachute did not work.

This week the 1st and 2nd grade teams started to use the LEGO SPIKE Essential!

First, coaches had returning 2nd graders on the team explain to new members of the team the different parts of the SPIKE Essential hub, important parts of the robot kit (motors, color sensor, and light), and how to connect their robot to their iPad.

Next, students began their first activity: building a swing. Students followed the LEGO Education activity in their iPad to build and program a swing. This activity taught students how to program the SPIKE Essential motor. Once students followed the steps in the activity they had an opportunity to upgrade both the build of the swing and the code. This allows students to apply what they have just learned.

The second SPIKE Essential activity of the week was the Fast Lane where students followed steps to build an amusement park fast lane using the kits color sensor and light. The light of the fast lanes changes color depending on the color card the students place in front of the color sensor.

These two activities, gave students an introduction to programming the three major parts of the SPIKE Essential kit: the motor, the light, and the color sensor.

On Monday/Tuesday the 1st and 2nd grade students built a ferris wheel using their LEGO SPIKE Essential. The objective of the activity that students be able to modify and improve an existing solution and to continue to develop the sequential thinking needed to create programs.

Students first build the ferris wheel as instructed by the lesson and code it following the lesson's instructions. Once they have done that and test their ferris wheel they have to modify the build and the program. When modifying this time, students were asked how to make the ferris wheel more exciting.

On Thursday and Friday students started the open class activity. 1st graders built and programmed a snack stand using LEGO icons and 2nd graders programmed a game called Avoid the Edge using word blocks. The activities were differentiated because moving forward we would like 2nd grade to program mainly using word blocks and have 1st grade use icon blocks.

The objective of the snack stand was for students to program an automated snack stand to move forward and backward when cued by the light sensor.

The objective of the Avoid the Edge activity was for students to program the motor to spin and hit a ball hard enough that it would make it to the edge of their game but not too hard that it would fall off. As well, they had to have the color sensor cue a sound when it sensed the red ball.

This week we held the 1st and 2nd grade robotics open class and students got to explore different robots and coding apps!

Thank you to parents, grandparents, and siblings who attended the open class on Monday and Tuesday! We hope you enjoyed seeing the types of automated builds your children do with the LEGO SPIKE Essential and how they are learning to program it. I know our students enjoyed having their parents in class with them.

On Thursday/Friday we gave students a break from the LEGO SPIKE Essentials and had them explore other robots and coding apps which we routinely use in our program. Coaches set up different stations:

1. Spheros - a spherical robot which students can either drive or code to move 

2. Beebots - a bee robot which students program to move about in a specific pattern

3. Osmos - a coding app which practices students sequential thinking using osmo

4. Beebot coding: another coding app which practice students sequential thinking

5. LEGO free build

In small groups, students rotated through each station to explore these different activities. We will continue to introduce these activities throughout the year

This week the 1st and 2nd grade robotics teams started working on FIRST LEGO League Explore Masterpiece 2023-2024! For the next 12-16 weeks students will be following the FIRST LEGO League Explore curriculum to learn about different types of art and careers in the performing arts, how art can be integrated with technology, and how the team can integrate art with technology in an innovative way to share their personal hobbies and passions! At the end of the 12-16 weeks students will compete in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Explore Masterpiece Regional Qualifier here in Guadalajara. For the regional they will need to show everything they have learned thus far by building a team model and creating a team poster documenting their journey. I will be meeting with 1st and 2nd grade parents to go over the FIRST LEGO League Explore curriculum and ways in which parents can support us next Monday, October 2 from 3:45-4:30.

On Thursday/Friday students received their engineering notebooks, which they will be using throughout this journey to document ideas and what they are learning. Teams delved into discovery and examples of how they use this core value both in and out of robotics. Also, the teams started to explore the theme by talking about their own personal interests and created collages showcasing these interests. 

This week, the teams completed Session 2 of the FLL Explore Masterpiece Curriculum and started Session 3.