Year+2+D&T

D & T Year 2 || =Controlling a vehicle=

Information ||

Objectives
• To estimate distances • To develop a set of instructions to control a simple robot • To undertake simple design-and-make activities

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • be able to estimate distances using non-standard units; • understand quarter, half and full turns; • understand directional language such as ‘left’ and ‘right’; • have carried out simple design-and-make assignments; • have experimented with a floor robot to establish what it can do and how to give it appropriate commands.

Vocabulary
route, length, distance, direction, estimate, turn, clockwise, anticlockwise, right, left, forwards, backwards, control, instructions, commands, program, sequence, predict, estimate

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • one or more programmable floor robots (in this Example, //Roamer//) • simple version of control software • pens, paper, card, collage materials, glue, scissors, masking tape • large sheets of paper or plastic tablecloths for making a floor map • paper flowers (see Preparation for this lesson) • large card numbers 1 to 12

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use a programmable floor robot.

Preparation for this lesson
Prepare a cover for the floor robot, similar to a paper hat, to look like a bumble-bee. Prepare a floor map for the robot, making sure that all routes and junctions are at right angles to each other. Get the children to prepare some paper flowers to decorate the route map. Before the lesson, set up the relevant software on the shared area of the network or on the computer that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display.

Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Seat the children to face an interactive whiteboard or screen. Ask the children to tell you how you should load a simple control program. Demonstrate the commands forward, back and turn, adding and explaining the use of numbers to determine the distance to be moved and the angle to be turned in degrees.

Main activity
Identify a group of children to work with the floor robot. Ask the rest of the children to work at the computers with a teaching assistant to explore and develop simple commands and sequences to direct an object around the screen. Get the floor robot group to sit in a circle. Use masking tape to mark a cross on the floor in the middle of the circle.

Activity 1
Arrange the numbers 1 to 12 around the edge of the circle in the position of the numbers on a clock face. Seat yourself at the number 6. Using the floor robot, demonstrate the same movements for the screen object. Get the children to estimate how far it is from the edge of the circle where the numbers are to the cross at the centre of the circle (i.e. the radius of the circle), using the length of the floor robot as the unit of measurement. Try this out by placing the robot at 6, pointing at the centre of the circle. Clear its memory, stressing the need to do this at the start of a new program. Send the floor robot to the centre using a command such as forward 8. Ask other children to try this to establish the best estimate. Now place the robot at 6, pointing at the centre of the circle. Clear its memory, then send it to the child at 3 using commands such as forward 8, right 90°, forward 8, right 180°. The child at 3 clears the memory and sends the robot to the child at 12 by repeating the instructions. The child at 12 sends it to 9, and the child at 9 returns it to you.

Activity 2
Place a previously marked out route map on the floor. Decorate the map with paper flowers that the children have made. Put the bumble-bee paper hat on the floor robot. Get the children to program the robot to follow the route. Tell a story about how the bee needs to collect honey from different flowers and take the honey back to the hive. Demonstrate how to get the bee to the flowers. Let a small group of four children work independently to collect the honey. Explain to the rest that they will have the opportunity to do this in future lessons. Ask them to design and make their own paper hats or disguises for the floor robot, and route maps. For example, the robot could be a pirate capturing ships on the sea. Emphasise the use of fixing and materials.

Plenary
Get the children to sit in a large circle. Choose one of them to act as the ‘robot’. The rest of the class are to give them instructions to move forward and turn to make them visit different children in the circle. Q What do you need to remember when you are programming the robot? ===Ask the children to take it in turns to act as the robot and to give instructions. Encourage them to give increasingly accurate instructions to make sure that the robot travels the correct distance across the circle. ===

Next steps
Write a set of commands to enable others to program the floor robot.

Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Design and Technology Unit 2D: Controlling a floor turtle QCA Design and Technology Unit 2A: Vehicles

Subject links
Link to work in literacy: for example, write adventure stories related to the disguises. Possible links can be made to map work in geography and to measuring using non-standard units in mathematics.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • Control of a screen object or programmable floor robot requires children to think creatively about and to test solutions to spatial problems, and to practise their estimation skills. • Use of a programmable floor robot allows children to experience elementary programming techniques.