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Lesson overview

In the fifth lesson of this unit of work, your class will learn about how technology and people interact. They will learn about signalling movement and giving warnings with light and sound. Students will use code to control their robot car’s LEDs and buzzer to produce lights and sounds for a variety of different scenarios. Finally, they will discuss the other sensors and signals they think would be useful for their robots and an autonomous vehicle in real life.

Learning outcomes

• Understand what we mean by signalling and why it is needed to keep people safe
• Discuss the best ways for robots to signal to humans
• Understand, describe and control LEDs and buzzers
• Debug programs
• Identify and share problems encountered with solutions

Lesson steps

1. Video opener (5 mins)
   Introduction to safe cities and driverless cars. Today’s challenge is to signal your robot cars’ movements and point out hazards using lights and sound.
2. Classroom discussion (10 mins)
   Students will discuss the video and talk about the variety of ways computers and humans ‘talk’ to each other.
3. Make (25 mins)
   Introduction to the LEDs and buzzer hardware and how to control them with code. They should be able to signal movements with light and noise.
4. Test (10 mins)
   Test the robot works as expected. What have you learned from the other groups’ approach to signalling?
5. Reflect (10 mins)
   Students will reflect on their learning, including problems they had and how they solved them.

Equipment required (per group)

• mBot with remote
• Laptop or tablet with mBlock
• Materials to serve as obstacles

England

Computing Key Stage 2

• Design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical systems
• Use sequence, selection, and repetition in programs; work with output
• Use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs

USA

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students

• 1d. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
• 3d. Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
• 5d. Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.
• 7c. Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal.