The Guided Mission

1. Prepare

• Read through the student material in the LEGO^® Education SPIKE^™ App.
• To complete this lesson, your students could use the Advanced Driving Base model and the Dozer Blade attachment.

2. Engage (10 Min.)

• Use the ideas in the Ignite a Discussion section below to engage your students in a discussion related to this lesson.
• Use the video to explain the lesson.

3. Explore (30 Min.)

• Ask them to set up the Boccia Share model on the game field.
• Have them follow the instructions to write a program to drive their robot to the Boccia model and activate it.

4. Explain (10 Min.)

• Facilitate a discussion about the key functionalities of the robot in triggering the model to send a cube over the wall.

5. Elaborate (40 Min.)

• Have each team practice lining up their robot and sending it on a mission to activate the Boccia model.
• Ask whether they’ve noticed anything to be especially aware of during this mission (i.e., they should decide between the red or blue cube and not send both cubes over the wall).
• Prompt a discussion about what they’ve learned about following lines that could help them in accessing other missions.
• Don’t forget to leave some time for cleanup.

6. Evaluate

• Give feedback on each student’s performance.
• You can use the assessment rubrics provided to simplify the process.

Use these questions to engage your students in a discussion about how they can use what they’ve learned so far to successfully complete this mission:

• What’s the robot doing?
• How does the robot reach the Boccia model?
• How does the robot activate the Boccia model?
• What’s the ideal balance between speed and accuracy for this mission?

Have your students watch this video to see what they’re about to do.

Setting Up the Boccia Share Model
Share these tips with your students as they’re setting up the Boccia model:

• Make sure the model is built correctly and operates as it should.
• Carefully apply the Dual Lock and correctly position the model on the mat.

Activating the Boccia Share model

• Try activating both red and blue cubes individually, swapping the attachment as needed.
• Reset the model after each activation.

Setting Up the Boccia Share Model on the Mat
Here’s the correct position of the model on the playing surface:

Main Program

Simplify this lesson by:

• Focusing on the robot’s accuracy in following the line to reach the mission.
• Solving one part of the mission with your students as a group.

Take this lesson to the next level by:

• Challenging your students to follow other lines on the game field.
• Assigning another one of this year’s FIRST Lego League challenges to be done before or after this mission.

Teacher Observation Checklist
Create a scale that matches your needs, for example:

1. Partially accomplished
2. Fully accomplished
3. Overachieved

Use the following success criteria to evaluate your students’ progress:

• Students worked well as a team to complete the mission.
• Students worked together as a team to complete more missions in the same run.
• Students can present their robot, program, and mission strategy, explaining how they’ve successfully completed each mission.

Self-Assessment
Have each student choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.

• Blue: I’ve successfully completed one mission.
• Yellow: I’ve successfully completed more than one mission.
• Violet: Along with my team, I’ve presented our robot, program, and mission strategy to our coach with each team member participating.

Peer-Assessment
Encourage your students to provide feedback to others by:

• Having one student score the performance of another using the colored brick scale above
• Asking them to present constructive feedback to each other so that they can improve their group’s performance during the next lesson

To integrate language arts skills development:

• Have your students prepare and deliver a presentation about how they developed an effective strategy for completing the mission in the shortest amount of time.

Note: This will make for a longer lesson.

Students who enjoyed this lesson might be interested in exploring these career pathways:

• Manufacturing and Engineering (Pre-Engineering)
• Information Technology (Computer Programming)