Before You Begin

Essential Question: How do we decide the best way to control technology in different situations?

Students will investigate this essential question by driving the VEX AIM Coding Robot with the One Stick Controller to collect and kick sports balls and place barrels at specific locations. They will learn about different ways to control the robot as well as collaboration methods to come up with a collective strategy.

Unit Understandings:

• The robot's built-in Drive mode allows you to control the robot using the controller.
• The controller has five buttons and one joystick.
• Each element on the controller corresponds to a predefined robot action, such as moving, turning, or kicking.
• Collaborating and discussing ideas when driving the robot helps us develop stronger solutions than working alone.

Standards Alignment:

Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA)

• 1B-CS-02: Model how computer hardware and software work together as a system to accomplish tasks.
• 1B-DA-07: Use data to highlight or propose cause-and-effect relationships, predict outcomes, or communicate an idea.
• 2-AP-15: Seek and incorporate feedback from team members and users to refine a solution that meets user needs.

View additional standards from ISTE, Common Core, and other standards bodies as well as descriptions of how and where each of these standards is met in this unit here.

Materials Needed (per group):

• VEX AIM Coding Robot
• One Stick Controller
• 2 sports balls
• 3 orange barrels
• 3 blue barrels
• AprilTag ID 0, 1, 2, and 3
• AIM Field (4 tiles and 8 walls)

View the Get Started page to learn more about setting up your classroom’s robots and controllers for their first use.

Suggested Time for this Unit: 5-7 Sessions

While pacing will vary classroom to classroom, suggested timing can help you plan effectively. A ‘session’ is considered approximately 45-50 minutes. You know your students best, so adjust timing as needed to best meet the needs of your students in your setting. 

• Introduction: 1 session
• Lesson 1: 1 session
• Lesson 2: 1-2 sessions
• Unit Challenge: 2-3 sessions

After students have watched the video, facilitate a whole class discussion to elicit students' observations and prepare them for co-creating learning targets for the unit. 

• Ask students to share their observations, claims and evidence based on the video, modeling scientific curiosity and openness.
• As students share their questions and ideas, help students frame their wonderings as productive scientific questions.
• Guide students to consider the skills and understandings they might need to complete the challenge, as they will use these as they co-create learning targets.
• Draw on students' prior knowledge of things like magnetism, to help them consider how a magnet in the robot could be useful for picking up objects with metal cores.

Next, help students make a real-world connection to the content in this unit and engage prior knowledge using the following prompt.

• Where have you seen remote-controlled machines in real life? What tasks were the machines completing?  Examples may vary based on students' relevant experience. Some examples might include: 
  • In coastal areas, they might mention underwater robots used for marine research.
  • In urban settings, they might connect to drones used for food deliveries or surveillance.
  • In rural areas, they might recognize remotely operated farm machinery.

Students will be documenting their thinking and learning in their journals throughout this course. Ensure that each student has access to a journal. 

Guide students as a whole class through the process of co-creating learning targets. During the first unit, additional support is helpful as students learn this process. In future units, this initial brainstorming can be completed individually or in small groups.

1. Brainstorm with students what they will need to know to complete the activities shown in the video above. Frame these as “I can” statements.
   1. Example “I can” statements include:
      1. I can use the Drive mode and the One Stick Controller to move the robot.
      2. I can collaborate with my group so all members complete the Unit Challenge.
2. Co-create learning targets based on that list.

For more guidance on co-creating learning targets with your students, see this VEX Library Article.