Session 3: Driving Your Robot

Before You Begin Your Session

This session is designed to help your students confidently drive the Hero Bot and begin collecting data in their engineering notebooks. They will test different driver configurations and record their findings, establishing a data collection routine that can be built upon throughout the season.

By the end of the session, students will use their collected data to make decisions about who drives for their team and what they can look for in an alliance partner, which they can carry into future sessions or competitions.

Feel free to move through this session at your own pace—the structure and resources are here to guide you, not constrain you.

Have your Hero Bot and VEX V5 Robotics Competition Field ready for the session before you begin. You will need the following: 

• A VEX V5 Robotics Competition Field and Override Game Elements: 
  • First, build your competition Field perimeter.
  • Then assemble this season’s VEX V5 Robotics Competition Field using these build instructions with these Override game elements.
• A Hero Bot (built in the previous session).
• Charged controller and batteries.
• An engineering notebook.

Review strategies for implementing this STEM Lab with your team.

• Use Implementing a Competition 101 STEM Lab to help you prepare and facilitate this session.
• Read Making Competition 101 STEM Labs Work For All Students for ways to adapt, or differentiate, session content to meet varying student needs.
• Review the considerations in Cultivating a Positive Team Culture to support your team's growing collaboration skills.

In this session, students will test each of the controller configurations and collect data on their performance. While a sample table is provided on the task card, students should record their findings in the team’s engineering notebook. The engineering notebook is meant to capture the team’s progress throughout the season and is an important factor in competition awards, like the Excellence Award. Building documentation into team activities can help support students to develop good notebooking habits. Be sure that when students are not actively driving, they are practicing their documentation. To learn more about the engineering notebook as a learning tool, read this article.

The goal of this activity is to get students comfortable driving the Hero Bot, while also practicing data collection. By the end of the session, students will use their notebooks to help them make data-based decisions about who drives for their team and what they can look for in an alliance partner based on each student’s preferred driver configuration. 

Because students are running a test and recording data in this Activity, they are directed to review the Engineering Design Process — Develop Solutions section of the Engineering Notebook Rubric ("Did we build, test, and decide?" in the Student-Friendly version). 

• You may want to have a discussion comparing the levels within these rows: what actually separates an exemplary entry from a proficient one, or a developing one from beginning. Students can find these distinctions to be a difficult part of using the rubric, so give them time to talk through the differences before they start testing. Then, encourage students to check their entries against the rubric while they test, not just when they finish, so they have the opportunity to improve and iterate on their entries.

Students do not need any Pins on the Field for this activity. Clearing the elements off of the Field can help students focus on the driving task at hand. Other tips for facilitating this activity include:

• Make sure students understand the path they are meant to drive around the Field. You may want to use tape to mark the pattern on the Field.
• To keep things moving, have all students test one configuration at a time. For example, once everyone has tested Dual Drive, then change the configuration, and carry out the test for everyone with Split Arcade. This will minimize students' time between their driving turns to help keep them engaged.

Make sure that students are taking turns driving and timing, and that all students are recording data in the engineering notebook. Encourage students to pay attention to the drivers to note strategies, ask questions, and think about adjustments they might make on their next turn. Prompt students to discuss what worked well and how they could improve their time or efficiency, and to make note of these ideas in their data collection.

Remember to keep student learning as the main focus as they drive. Students must do all of the driving and data collection themselves, but you can offer tips like pointing or marking inside the Field so drivers can see where the robot needs to go, showing the steps to change a controller configuration once and then letting students do it, or asking questions like "What did you notice about turning in that configuration?" instead of telling students which one to use.

• Refer to the Student-Centered Policy for more details about what the coach/mentor can and can't do while the team drives and tests.
• Remind students of the Student-Centered Check items that apply to driving and recording data if needed:
  • Robot: Are we designing, building, testing, coding, and improving our robot?
  • Notebook: If we keep one, are we the ones writing our decisions, iterations, learning, successes, and failures?

The goal of this activity is for students to collect additional data about their driving, using a task where precision is key. 

Only preload the one Pin in Flex's claw that is needed for this activity. Clearing the majority of the Field can help students focus on the task at hand, and ensures that everyone is testing with the same setup. Other tips for facilitating this activity include:

• Make sure the Pin is preloaded, the Toggle is set to yellow, and the robot starts in the same location each time, to ensure accurate data collection.
• Communication is key! Encourage students to help one another figure out where they need to drive and position the robot in order to score the Pin and flip the Toggle to red.
• To keep things moving, have all students complete a test with one driver configuration at a time. For example, once everyone has tested Dual Drive, then change the configuration, and carry out the test for everyone with Split Arcade. This will minimize students' time between their driving turns to help keep them engaged.
  • You can keep the same rotation of drivers and other roles as the previous activity. Ensure that students know when it will be their turn, and that all students have a chance to document.

If time allows, repeat the test so everyone has more than one chance to drive each configuration. Encourage non-drivers to pay attention to the drivers to note strategies, ask questions, and think about adjustments they might make on their next turn. Prompt students to discuss what worked well and how they could improve their time or efficiency, and to make note of these ideas in their data collection.

If your students are struggling to make decisions about drive team roles, or to use their data to support their thinking, check out this collaborative decision-making video to support students in using data to guide their choices. It offers practical strategies and examples you can share with learners who need extra help interpreting results and making team-based decisions.

Remember, as the coach/mentor, your role is to support students to make these decisions themselves. You cannot dictate who drives, but you can guide students' thinking by doing things like:

• Having students group themselves by favorite or fastest configuration to get started.
• Pointing out complementary skills, like a student who was quick and precise at one part of the path paired with a teammate who kept a steady eye on the whole field.
• Ask questions about the data to support students' ideas. Does your drive time data support your choice? Why or why not? Or, what data are you using to back up your choice?

You can also review this article for ways to support a positive team culture throughout your season.