LAUNCH: Robotics Project

For the last four years, I have been working with my 6th grade students on a robotics project.  When we started the project, I had very limited understanding of how to use EV3 robots.  Each year I learn a little more, but I have never reached the level of expertise my students display on a daily during this project.  In the past, my partner, Melanie Carr, and I have built and designed projects for the students to work on.  While the project evolved over time, we still felt something was missing.  The students always loved the project and they were always very engaged, but it never felt like they connected with the challenge.

This year, we decided to turn our robotics project into a LAUNCH project.  Instead of giving the students a challenge to solve, we had them choose the project and determine how to use a robot to solve the problem. 

Here is a brief summary of our LAUNCH:

L (Look, Listen, Learn) - We began this unit as we always do with a Creative Thinking Task that requires students examine a list of household items and determine if they are robots or not.  After they have made their decisions, we give the students a rubric to judge what makes certain appliances robots and allow the students to change their answers.  We follow this activity with a discussion of what makes a robot and the thinking strategies used to complete this activity.  Next, we provide the students with two tasks to learn and practice basic EV3 programming tasks.  Now it's time to launch.  After learning what a robot is and how to operate an EV3 robot, we ask the students to brainstorm problems they see in their daily lives and how they might solve them.  

A (Ask Tons of Questions) - Once the students completed their brainstorming session, we had them look at their lists and reflect on which solutions might require use of a robot. In teams, the students selected one problem and brainstormed a list of ways to solve the problem.  They researched work others were doing to solve the problem they selected.  

U (Understand the Problem or Process) - The students attacked their problems and documented their work in their Engineering Design Notebooks using the Engineering Design Process to guide their reflections.

N (Navigate Ideas) - The students examined their solutions and selected the one they thought was most effective.  They scrutinized the "cost", time, and feasibility of their solutions to determine which solution method they would build and solve through the use of robotics.

C (Create a Prototype) - Nest, the students build simulations for their robots to perform in order demonstrate their solution.  Once their simulations were built, the students built and programmed an EV3 robot to complete the task.

H(Highlight and Fix) - At the end of each session, the students spend 10-15 minutes reflecting on their progress.  They described their work for the day, what successes their teams had, what hiccups they encountered, and wrote a plan for their next robotics session.  When the teams had completed their challenge, they shared them with the class and gave constructive feedback to other teams.

We had never gotten this level of excitement or successful outcomes in past projects.  The students truly cared about their challenges in ways they have not before.  The students chose problems ranging from opening a combination lock (a huge problem for 6th graders) to watering plants while on vacation to putting out building fires.  As a result, we have begun to look at all of our challenges and are working to find ways to add more student choice in the "What's the Problem" phase of our STEM Challenges.

The next time we do this project with our students, we will spend more time in the brainstorming and design steps of the process.  We will have students spend more time examining problems they see in their daily lives and arrange groups based on similar passions vs. comfort level with the programming software.