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Summary

Materials Needed

The following is a list of all the materials that are needed to complete the VEX GO Lab. These materials include student facing materials as well as teacher facilitation materials. It is recommended that you assign two students to each VEX GO Kit.

In some Labs, links to teaching resources in a slideshow format have been included. These slides can help provide context and inspiration for your students. Teachers will be guided in how to implement the slides with suggestions throughout the lab. All slides are editable, and can be projected for students or used as a teacher resource. To edit the Google Slides, make a copy into your personal Drive and edit as needed.

Other editable documents have been included to assist in implementing the Labs in a small group format. Print the worksheets as is or copy and edit those documents to suit the needs of your classroom. Example Data Collection sheet setups have been included for certain experiments as well as the original blank copy. While they offer suggestions for setup, these documents are all editable to best suit your classroom and the needs of your students.

Materials Purpose Recommendation

VEX GO Kit

For constructing the Fractions build in Engage.

 1 kit per group

Build Instructions

For step by step student build instructions. 

 1 per group, or 1 set to be displayed for the class

Robotics Roles & Routines Google / .docx / .pdf

For assigning roles to students in their groups.

 1 per group

Graph Paper or Blueprint Worksheet (Google / .docx / .pdf)

For completing the written/drawn portion of the Lab.

 1 per student

Writing utensils

For completing the written/drawn portion of the Lab.

 1 per student

Lab 1 Image Slideshow Google / .pptx / .pdf

For visual aids while teaching.

 1 per class

Pin Tool

For aiding in student building.

 1 per group

Get Ready...Get VEX...GO! PDF Book (optional)

 To read with students to introduce them to VEX GO through a story and introductory build. 1 for demonstration purposes

Get Ready...Get VEX...GO! Teacher's Guide (optional) Google / .pptx / .pdf

For additional prompts when introducing students to VEX GO with the PDF Book. 1 for teacher use

Engage

Begin the lab by engaging with the students.

  1. Hook

    You are going to a party, and you can have a whole cupcake, or a piece of cake for dessert. Which would you want, and why? Draw the “whole” cupcake and fractional pieces of cake on the board, as students offer answers, and track their responses.

    Now, if I wanted to have enough of each dessert for you all to have what you picked, how many of each would I need? Write out each as a fraction on the board, and talk through them.

    Note: If students are new to VEX GO, use the Get Ready...Get VEX...GO! PDF book and Teacher’s Guide (Google / .docx / .pdf) to introduce them to learning and building with VEX GO. Add an additional 10-15 minutes to your lesson time to accommodate this additional activity. 

  2. Leading Question

    What if I wanted to have cupcakes and pieces of cake that were the same size, so everyone would be equal? You’d need to figure out the size of one “whole”.

  3. Build Fractions Build

Play

Allow students to explore the concepts introduced.

Part 1

Explain that one side of the box represents a “whole” or “1”, and instruct students to create as many whole equivalents as they can using their VEX GO beams and plates. For each one, they should write it as a fraction, and draw it on graph paper.

Mid-Play Break

What do we notice about all of these fractions? What is similar or different about the numerator and denominator? What if my numerators and denominators were different - how could I compare the fractions then? Yes, by size!

Part 2

Using both sides of the box, see how many equivalent fractions you can create using VEX GO beams and plates. Write and draw each on on graph paper or a Blueprint Worksheet.

Share

Allow students to discuss and display their learning.

Discussion Prompts

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