This week was all about teamwork, setting up team agreements and expectations, and getting to know one another. This was tackled through a mini unit on bridges!

On Monday/Tuesday students had to build a paper bridge that could hold as many keys as possible.

On Thursday/Friday students learned more about the science behind bridges and were then given the challenge of designing and building a bridge built out of spaghetti. The teams were asked to make their bridge a truss bridge: a bridge made out of beams shaped into a triangle which allows the bridge to evenly distribute the load.

On Saturday, students built their bridges. They carefully tied together spaghetti with rubber bands, measured and cut the spaghetti, and then carefully used a glue gun to put it all together. Some teams were able to test their bridge. While other teams will finalize their bridges on Tuesday and then test.

For each bridge, students had to use the engineering design process by first planning their bridge, designing the bridge, and carefully executing their strategy. As well, for the spaghetti bridge students shared their prior knowledge about bridges before learning more about types of bridges and the physics of bridges.

For teamwork, students on Thursday/Friday did a hula hoop pass. As a whole team and in a circle, the team had to work together to pass a hula hoop to each member of the team without letting go of one another's hands.

This week the 3rd and 4th grade teams began to use the LEGO SPIKE Prime Robots!

To kickoff using the robots, the teams learned about the different types of pieces, motors, and sensors in the kit by doing a LEGO robotics scavenger hunt.

Next, the 3rd graders on the team built Tacobot, a robot designed by Carnegie Mellon robotics academy. 3rd grade will be following this curriculum which will help them learn how to program the robot to do basic movements and how to program the three different sensors which come with the kit. Students who completed the tacobot build started the first activity: programming the light matrix on the hub to act as a billboard.

The 4th graders got to build any robot they wanted as long as it had the following requirements: 2 wheels, 2 motors, 1 color sensor, 1 touch sensor, and 1 force sensor. Then they started the SPIKE Prime Coding Sprint.  For this activity students have to complete 6 challenges as quickly as possible which will help them review skills they learned last year.

This week the teams continued to work with the SPIKE Prime. 

3rd grade completed the advertisement activity in which they used their SPIKE Prime hub as a billboard and created a digital billboard advertising their favorite things. As well, the students learned how to program their robot, tacobot, to move forward sequentially. The 3rd graders were asked to program tacobot to move forward 10 cm four times. After each forward movement they had to program tacobot to stop and play a sound or display an image on the hub. Each forward movement had to be done at a different speed. Lastly, students began to learn about different turns their robot can do and how to program the turns. To help students in mini-challenges where they had to program their robot to move from one side of the table to the other while turning around obstacles students first used pseudocode to plan their algorithms.

4th graders completed the SPIKE Coding Sprint! This coding sprint is a review of conditional logic the students learned last year. The sprint was made up of 6 challenges in which they had to program their robot to do an action using a specific sensor. Next, 4th grade reviewed if-then-else statements, discrete decisions, and did a mini challenge where they had to program their robot to decide whether to turn left or right depending on the color their robot saw.

While this was a short week for 3rd and 4th grade teams it was a busy week! Not only did teams keep programming their LEGO SPIKE Prime but they also decided on a team name, worked on a team logo, and a made a team agreements poster.

This week 3rd and 4th grade started working on FIRST LEGO League Challenge Masterpiece 2023-2024! For the next 12-16 weeks students will be following the FIRST LEGO League Challenge 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) Challenge Masterpiece Regional Qualifier here in Guadalajara. For the regional they will be judged in the following areas:

1. Core Values  - students must show in a 5 minute presentation and with a core values poster how their team has used the core values while preparing for the regional. As well, judges will be observing how the teams use the core values during the regional.

2. Robot Design - once again, students will have 5 minutes to present to judges the process through which they arrived at their final robot design, build, strategy, and programming. Students do not need to have the biggest and best robot, rather judges are looking for teams that best showcase the process they went through,

3. Robot Game - the teams will have 2.5 minutes to solve as many missions as possible with their robot.

4. Innovation Project - students must learn about how technology is currently integrated into museums, filmmaking, stage productions, and costume design. Students must then focus on a hobby they all share and find a solution to integrate art and technology to better share their interest with their community. For the solutions, teams must present a prototype which does not need to be built with LEGOS. Finally students will present the process through which they identified their problem and solution and finally their prototype.

I will be meeting with 3rd through 6th grade parents to go over the FIRST LEGO League Challenge curriculum and ways in which parents can support us next Tuesday, October 3rd from 3:45-4:30.

On Monday/Tuesday we discussed the core values portion of FLL Challenge and what the expectations are for the regional. Next, teams started to build the mission models that they will use in the robot game.

On Saturday, we started off with a core values activity on empathy. The teams first reflected on what empathy is and watched the short film "The Present". Students then reflected on the role empathy played in the video. Finally, students were put into teams of 2 and had to make a paper airplane but only using one hand! At the end, the teams reflected on how this activity related to both empathy and our core values.

As well, Flying Capybara began to vote on a logo. Teams also built mission models.

This week 3rd and 4th graders learned about the intricacies of this year's robot game,  learned everything they will be to complete for the innovation project, reviewed how to program a robot arm, and did two team building activities.

On Monday/Tuesday the teams did a quick listening game in which they had to be carefully listening to commands from a coach to ensure they grabbed a plate before their teammate. As well, coaches gave a detailed explanation of the robot game at the robot table.

On Thursday/Friday students learned about the innovation project. This year's theme was discussed as well as all the steps the students will need to complete to arrive at their final solution. 

On Saturday, the team first worked in their engineering notebook.s They answered questions about museums and identified which of the mission models were related to museums. The questions in their engineering notebooks helped the coaches see what students already know about museums and what they still need to learn. Lastly, we did a team-building activity to help with team morale and to integrate 3rd and 4th more.