Session 1 — What's a Robot?
Students meet Edison, find its sensors, and use a clap-control barcode to drive it across the room. First encounter with Input → Process → Output and the engineering loop.
Opening Concept
Run Sheet
- 0:00–0:08 Warm-up: Human Robot PL-1
One student is the robot. Programmers may only say: step forward, step back, turn left, turn right, stop. No interpreting.
- Pick a student to be the robot, another to be the programmer.
- Walk the robot around a chair or down a short taped path.
- Run it twice if you can — let two pairs try.
- Debrief in 30 seconds: what happened when an instruction was vague? That’s the same problem we’ll see all semester with Edison.
Watch for: Programmers who say things like ‘walk over to the door.’ Stop them and ask: which of the five words was that?
- 0:08–0:22 Meet Edison — Find the Sensors
Hand out the Meet Edison sheet. In pairs, find every sensor and switch on the physical robot.
- Walk through Edison’s parts using the EdBlocks Activity 1 worksheet.
- Call out the four sensors and have students point to each on their own Edison: sound, infrared, line, light.
- Show the on/off switch and the round play button. Have everyone toggle them once.
- Show how to slide Edison across a barcode — bars run side-to-side under the line sensor.
Watch for: Students treating Edison like it’s fragile. It’s fine — let them turn it over and look at the bottom.
If they finish early: Ask the pair to predict where each sensor would not work. (e.g., light sensor in the dark.)
- 0:22–0:35 Scan the First Barcode (Demo + Try)
Show the clap-control barcode at the front. Demonstrate scanning once. Then each pair scans on their own.
- Hold Edison over the barcode and slide it slowly across the bars until the red light blinks.
- Press the round button once to start the program.
- Clap once = turn right 90°. Clap twice = drive forward. Three claps = stop.
- Do one slow demo at the front. Then have every pair scan and try a single clap.
Watch for: Edison holds the wrong angle and the scan doesn’t take. Show the slide motion explicitly — it has to move across the bars, not hover.
- 0:35–0:55 Explore: Move Edison Without Touching It
Open exploration. Pairs try to drive Edison using only claps.
- Set a loose goal for each pair: drive Edison from one edge of the EdMat to the other.
- Rotate the goal as they get it: ’now drive it back,’ ’now make it turn around twice.'
- Stay out of the way unless a pair is stuck — let them iterate.
If they finish early: Try clapping rhythms to follow a path you’ve taped or drawn. Or pair up two Edisons and clap to control both at once.
If they're stuck: Have them stand right next to Edison and clap hard. Sound is environmental — distance and ambient noise both matter.
- 0:55–1:00 Wrap-up
Quick circle. Each pair names one sensor and one thing Edison did.
- Ask: ‘what did Edison sense today?’ (Sound — claps.) ‘What did Edison do?’ (Drive, turn.)
- Tease next session: ‘Next time we’ll race using claps.’
Materials
Engineering Connection
Understand
Troubleshooting
- Barcode doesn't scan (no red light blink)
- Slide Edison across the barcode — don’t hover. The bars need to pass under the line sensor in one smooth motion. If the print is faint or the paper is curled, try a fresh copy.
- Edison scanned but won't move
- Press the round button once after scanning to start the program. Also check the on/off switch on the bottom.
- Two robots respond to the same clap
- That’s normal — sound is environmental. Spread pairs out or have them work one robot at a time. Loud claps directly above Edison work best.
- Edison drives in a curve instead of straight
- Expected. The two motors aren’t perfectly matched. We don’t fix this in Class 1 — we’ll talk about calibration in Class 2.