Back to Artemis II – Unit 3: Living and Working on the Moon
Artemis ROADS II – Unit 3 Lesson 4: ROV-ing on the Moon
In this lesson: First, students will consider robots’ role in everyday life, including the challenges related to building and programming them. Next, they will consider what tasks robots might assist humans with on the Moon before learning about an example robot being designed for the Artemis mission. Then students will learn about pseudo code and write instructions for a robot driving along a provided path. Students will then translate the list of instructions and attempt to drive the course with a programmable robot. Finally, students will demonstrate that they can correctly program a rover to drive the Artemis ROADS II Rover Challenge Map. Students can extend their learning by modifying their rover to precisely drop off the payload and/or to use flowcharts to describe how their program functions.
Lesson Level Question: How can we successfully design, build, and program robots to perform work on the Moon?
Engage
Students will consider the role of robots in their everyday life, including the challenges related to building and programming them. Next, they will consider what tasks robots might assist humans with on the Moon before learning about an example robot being designed for the Artemis mission right now.
Explore
Students will produce instructions for a robot driving along a provided path. Next, a matching game will help students understand how to translate their instructions to code and, for middle and high school students, MyBlocks.
Explain
Students will translate the list of instructions they wrote in the Explore section into block code and attempt to drive the course.
Elaborate
Students will be shown the Artemis ROADS II Challenge course and will be asked to write a different list of instructions for each of the stations that the robot might need to travel to. To prepare, students will learn how to use the color sensor of their robot and how to program conditional case or if-then statements.
Evaluate
Students will demonstrate that they correctly programmed their rover to drive the Artemis ROADS II Rover Challenge Map.
Extend (optional)
Students will improve their rover by designing and programming a mechanism to precisely drop off the payload at each of the stations. Middle and high school students will learn how to use flowcharts to describe how their program functions.
Standards Alignment
Each lesson includes standards alignment information for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Many lessons also include information on alignment opportunities for: CCSS Mathematics, CCSS English, WA State Learning Standards in Computer Science, WA State Standards in Social Emotional Learning.
In these documents, you will find an alignment summary, followed by details for each lesson: