Activity Guide WeDo 2.0

 Milo the Rover Activity

 Objective: The objective of this activity is to use Milo (The Science Rover) to demonstrate coding and have students experiment coding themselves to make Milo perform various tasks. As students explore with Milo, they will be able to find their own discoveries of how coding works with trial and error. At the end of the activity, students will have enhanced their understanding of coding. Milo can also give students an understanding of how scientists and engineers use rovers to explore spaces!

Standards:

1c: Leverage CT and CS experts, resources and professional learning networks to continuously improve practice integrating CT across content areas.

5b: Empower students to select personally meaningful computational projects.

4d: Create CS and CT learning environments that value and encourage varied viewpoints, student agency, creativity, engagement, joy and fun.

Activity Guide Outline

Introduction: 

    Before we get a jump into the activity, I will allow students to ask any questions and give them background information/knowledge of the activity. I will also reassure the students that as we start the coding section, there will be a ton of trial and error which will give us the opportunity to learn more about coding. 

Create Phase:

    Students will be able to have the opportunity to build Milo. It is much more fun to code something that is created by you. To build Milo, we will use the WeDo 2.0 lego kit and follow the instructions together. This creation will take a total of 5 minutes max. 

(Here is the link for Milo Building Instructions) 

Coding Phase:

    To code Milo, we first have to program him to the WeDo 2.0 app. I will at first give students demonstrations of a basic code such as just moving forward. From there, students will start to ponder various questions such as "can Milo move backwards, turn, change speeds, play music" and so on. To answer their questions, students will be able to have the opportunity to try out different codes to see what Milo is capable of. I will assist with questions they may have on the coding with what specific codes do. The goal is to see how many codes we can have Milo perform. 

Share Phase:

    When we are done coding, we will discuss what we have learned and what code was our favorite. We will discuss questions that still remain, why do they think coding is important, and exchange them to keep on practicing coding . I will provide them with the website Coding.org to allow students to keep up their coding practice and to be able to learn various types of coding.  

Conclusion

I believe that this coding experience will give students the spark to keep on learning about technology. Coding is all around us in everyday life such as video games, traffic lights, and self driving cars. Allowing students at a young age to gain an understanding of coding is important because they will have unlimited opportunities with coding knowledge. As far as we know, these students can be the next top creators. 

Here are some examples of the activity!