Activity summary

At this session, all our activities were focused on giving basic directional instructions to a robot, particularly Dash.

1. As our first activity, one of the facilitators played the role of a robot. Each student was given a card with two options on it. They were tasked to give their robot an instruction by choosing one of the options on their card (View the instruction cards here).
2. In the following game, students were asked to choose either a straight line or a circle (two options were provided on a card) to instruct Dash to draw it for them. One of the facilitators was building the sequence in the background and ran it upon each student's selection.
3. In the final activity, Dash was placed in a little cardboard house. Students were tasked to choose either keeping Dash inside its house or ask it to move outside. These two options were placed on single switches on a board and students could click their desired option.

Goals

• Re-introducing students to Dash (Due to a two-week-long gap between the activities)
• Assessing students' understanding of the direction
• Scaffolding for building a basic sequence

Notes from the session

• The Promethean board was on for one of our student groups and they could see the Dash's sequence on the board.
• Students really liked selecting an option by clicking the single switches
• Overall, students were able to make connections between their choices and Dash activities
• All the activities tried to help students notice the cause and effect relationships

Notes for C2LC design

• For the second activity, we were able to pre-construct a straight line and a circle in two separate browser pages and connect them to Dash and just run each sequence based on student's choice. Having the option to pair multiple browser pages to one robot, or being able to build multiple sequences on the same page would be a helpful feature for in-class activities and for educators.
• Providing a collection of default/preset movements/paths
• Providing an option to make some basic changes to the UI, for example changing the color of the blocks or their icon. This would be a helpful feature for educators as they may use specific colors, symbols, or terminology based on their students' needs.