How to Implement

• Girls will watch the SciGirls episode Robots to the Rescue and then discuss the connections to computational thinking practices and perspectives. Review these before watching the episode so the girls know to watch for them.
• Watch SciGirls: Robots to the Rescue.
• Have a discussion about robots. Here are some questions to help guide the discussion:
  • What was your favorite part of the episode? What robots have you used or do you know about? What did the robot do? What makes something a robot? Brainstorm a list of possibilities (they can sense, they can think, they can act).
  • Fun facts to share with the girls:
    • Definition of a robot - A robot is a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable/programmed by a computer (but not necessarily).
    • Origins of the word robot are rooted in the Czech language from the word robota which means “forced labor.” The term was coined in 1920.
    • Engineers design robots to do specific types of tasks. What were the robots in this episode designed to do? What kinds of skills would you need to have a career in robotics? If you were to design a robot what would you have it do? (The girls will have a chance to do this in their design journals.)
• Ask the girls to identify where they saw evidence of each of the four computational practices being used in the episode:
  • experimenting and iterating
  • testing and debugging
  • reusing and remixing
  • abstracting and modularizing
• Have girls respond to the following prompt in their design journals:
  • Think about something in your life that could be made easier using a robot. In your design journal, draw a quick sketch of what the robot would do. On the same page write one or two sentences describing your robot.