After students watch the video and before practicing, come together for a whole-class discussion using the video content and the answers to students' questions. Guide students to share their ideas about the similarities and differences between driving the robot, coding the robot using Button Coding, and coding the robot using VEXcode AIM. Encourage students to support their assertions with evidence.

Note students' ideas on the board, as you will come back to them in the Wrap-Up section of the lesson.

Students may have questions or observations relating to coding with blocks. Watch this video from the VEX Robotics Educators Conference to learn more about the case for block-based programming from Dr. David Weintrop.

Foreground the group work expectations at the start. Ask questions like:

• How is your group going to get started?
• How can you take turns while driving your robot? Coding your robot?
• What is something you can do to be helpful if it is not your turn to drive or code?

In the following lessons, students use two task cards during guided practice to integrate driving and coding. Driving helps students build a mental model of the robot's physical movements. They then translate this understanding into a computational model through coding. By moving between these modes, students continuously refine their solutions, deepening their conceptual understanding. To learn more about computational thinking in education, read this VEX PD+ Insights Article.

For guidance on facilitating transitions between driving and coding, see this VEX Library article: Facilitating the Cycle of Driving and Coding.

Distribute the Step 2 task card to each student (Google / .docx / .pdf). As students are completing this task card, circulate around the room and engage students in discussions to learn about their progress and understandings. Ask questions like: 

• How do you know when to start or stop the movement of the robot while you're driving?
• What details about your driving are you documenting to create your planned path? Why? What else might be important? 
• How are you collaborating to create a plan? How is each group member involved? 

After students complete their physical models, they will check in to share their progress with you. Once students have demonstrated that they have met all success criteria, distribute the Step 3 task card (Google / .docx / .pdf). Students will then begin to apply their learning from the Drive mode practice to coding in VEXcode. Because this is their first exploration in VEXcode AIM, be prepared to guide students through classroom procedures including: 

• Where they should save projects on their device
• What format their project names should have (i.e. Last Name Unit # Lesson #)

As students are coding the robot, circulate around the room and engage students in discussions to learn about their coding progress and understandings. Ask questions like: 

• What do you notice about the movement of the robot when you code it versus when you drove? How does the robot start or stop moving? 
• What questions do you have about using VEXcode AIM? Are there procedures you think would be helpful to note in your journal?
• How did you figure out the parameters you needed in your project? 

Step 4 is designed to promote student iteration and exploration by freely moving between driving and coding to improve their projects and find the best strategy for the task. Students are not “done” once they have coded the robot once, but can always find ways to improve their project or strategy. As students explore, ask questions like: 

• Did your ideas work as intended when you drove them? Why or why not? 
• How did your group choose what to change together?
• How does coding help your driving? How does driving help your coding?

Guide students to share their learning in a whole-class discussion. Help students reflect on their learning through practice to converge on shared understanding or learning targets.

Use the questions students answered in their journals as the starting point for the discussion. As you listen to students' contributions, ask follow up questions to guide their understanding:

• For strategy sharing: 
  • Did another group approach practice similarly or differently? Do you think your strategy was better or worse? Why? What evidence do you have to support that assertion? 
• For coding: 
  • How did moving between Drive mode and VEXcode help you complete the challenge? What did you learn about documenting your driving that helped you create a successful coding project?
  • Now that you have created your first VEXcode project, how would you add to or change what we noted about the differences between driving with the controller, Button Coding and coding with VEXcode AIM? 
  • What did you learn about using VEXcode with your robot that will help you moving forward? What ideas do we have in common about using VEXcode? 

Create a table comparing driving, Button Coding and Coding in VEXcode AIM using students ideas.