How to Implement

• Start by asking the group if they are familiar with robots. Has anyone seen a robot or touched one? Does a robot really “hear” you speak? Does it really “understand” what you say? The answer to the last question should be, “Not the same way that a person does.”
• Robots operate off of instructions, specific sets of things that they have been preprogrammed to do. In order to accomplish a task, a robot needs to have a series of instructions (sometimes called an algorithm) that it can run. Today, we are going to learn what it takes to make that happen.
• Girls will work in groups of three or four in this activity.
• Pull out a copy of the symbol key (or write the symbols on the board) and tell the girls that these six symbols will be the only ones they will use in this exercise. For this task, they will instruct their “robot” to build a specific cup stack using only the arrows in the symbol key.
• It can be helpful to go over an example with the group.

Steps for girls:

• Choose one “robot” per team. The rest of you will be programmers
• Send robot to “robot library.”
• Look at the cup stack image that your instructor gave you.
• Create an algorithm for how the robot should build the stack.
• Using the symbol key, translate your algorithm into arrows.
• When you have finished coding your stack, call the robot back in.
• Upon return, the robot reads the symbols from the piece of paper and translates them into movements.
• The group should watch for incorrect movements, then work together to debug their program before asking the robot to re-run it.

Rules:

• Programmers should translate all moves using only the six arrows suggested.
• Cups should remain with the robot. They should not be provided to programmers during coding.
• Once robots are back with their groups, there should be no talking.
• If girls ask about rules that haven’t been defined above, ask them to define that rule within their own team.

Additional Facilitation Guidelines

• Select a robot: Each team will choose one “robot” to go hang out in the “robot library.” This should be a location far enough away from the groups that no robot can find out what Cup Stack Card their programmers are working with. Robots can use their time in the library to practice cup stacking and to ask for clarification on rules.
• Program: Each team of programmers gets one Cup Stack Card at a time. They can then begin to create the algorithm for their stack. Here are some questions they might need to ask (you can prompt them if they get stuck):
  • How many cups will they need?
  • How many steps for the first cup? The second?
  • Are any cups upside down? How do you get the robot to flip a cup?
• Once these questions are answered, the programmers will use the symbols to write their code. They should review their code to see if it makes sense for the stack before calling their robot to return from the library.
• Run code: Now that the robot is back with the group, everyone should be silent. The groups should not attempt to use words or gestures to influence their robots' behavior. The robots should only operate according to what the arrows tell them to do. If the programmers find a mistake, they are allowed to halt the program, check the robot back into the library, and fix the error before bringing the robot back to complete the challenge.
• Repeat: Each time a group solves a challenge, the girls should send a new robot to the library. Give the group a new (preferably more difficult) Cup Stack Card. You can continue the activity until your time is up, all group members have been robots, or the cards have become too difficult.