Sphero Indi Intro

Materials Required: Sphero Indi kits

Hook Questions: What makes something a robot?

Activity:

Step 1(5 minutes): IF TV AVAILABLE Show students examples of robots and ask them what robots exist in their lives. Put on SciShow for Kids “Real-Life Robots”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wHJjLMnikU

Step 2 (15 minutes): Hand students Design a Robot Worksheet. Have them draw and design their own robots, encouraging them to think about how it interacts with the world and what it does.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N2ZgMqmhYSJhygaRuNPjyHD1E3yEmP2E/view?usp=share_link

Step 3 (25 minutes): Introduce students to the Sphero Indi robot. What do we noticed visually about the robots? We see wheels, lights, it makes sound, and it has a color sensor on itss belly!

Give students the color squares and ask students to try out putting indi on the different color squares (on the floor) - what happens? Ask them to figure out what every color does (~20 mins). We recommend starting with green, red, yellow, pink and blue (leave the 45 degree angles and purple celebration mats for after the majority of the group has figured out the initial mats).

Students can fill out the Sphero Color quiz to document their findings.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-jm0oYJKrtKrNtiICGen6f6kOFh1APt/view?usp=share_link

Step 4 (10 minutes): Regroup and talk about what each color does. Questions to ask:

• What do the tiles remind you of? (traffic lights - red green yellow!)
• What makes the Indi move? (a light/color sensor)
• What is allowing the Indi to decide what to do? (a code)
• What other electronic components does the indi have? (LED, Speaker).
• What happened when you put tiles close to each other? Far away?

Extension: Create a maze/race track using all the colors you just learned about. Get creative! Can you make a track using only ONE of each color?*

• You’ll use purple OR red at the end - not both