(Francais) E6: Assessment - Designing Solutions for the School

1. Have students create a presentation that includes the following elements:
   • Description of the classroom problem that the group has selected.
   • Description of group members and roles.
   • Explanation of the thinking that went into the design of their accessory.
   • Description of problems they ran into and how they were solved.
   • List of next steps: Where can they go from here with their invention?
   • Images of invented accessory for Dash.
   • Screenshot of final program created in the Blockly app.
   • Video of Dash using the accessory.
2. Students can organize their presentation using posters or digital platforms such as Seesaw, iMovie, or Google Slides.
3. Have student groups take turns presenting their projects to the class.
4. Encourage students to give each other feedback on their designs, programs, and/or presentations. Possible questions/feedback includes:
   • “How did you (build that accessory and what did you use)?”
   • “I like how you (added lights and sounds to your program).”
   • “What if you (recorded a sound for your program)?”

• Did your design work as planned? Why or why not?
• How could this design be scaled up for use in the real world?
• Do you think other schools could use your accessory? How? Where?
• How could your accessory improve the culture of a school?
• What was the hardest part of the design process?
• If you had time to redesign, what would you change?
• When making adjustments to your prototype or program, why is it important to retest after each individual change?

• Use our Evaluation Rubric to review students’ work and presentations.
• [Optional] Share your students’ work with the world using @logicsacademy and #dashanddot!

1. Say, “Today you will design a new accessory for Dash to solve a schoolwide problem!”
2. Use the 2-5 Design Thinking Presentation to introduce the iterative design thinking process to the class. Say, “Design Thinking has been used to develop all kinds of inventions we use each day, like smartphones, cars, board games and video games. We can use design thinking to improve conditions in our classroom.”
   • Understand: “Of course we understand what we are feeling, but it’s important to ask how those around us feel about things, too. When we understand how users are feeling and the problems they face, we can learn about problems that we all might share.”
   • Define: “Designers must be able to identify a problem or a need that they will attempt to solve. For example: Our classroom floor gets messy after craft activities. That’s a problem.”
   • Ideate: “The word ‘idea’ is the root word of the word ‘ideate.’ That’s because when we ideate, we come up with ways to solve the problem. Brainstorming allows us to come up with all kinds of ideas and then work together to decide on which ideas we’d like to try first. For example: Designing a program and accessory for Dash to sweep up the floor.”
   • Plan: “Once designers select the best solution, they make a plan. They draw a diagram of their design and figure out what materials they will need. For example: You will probably need Legos to build a sweeper for Dash to clean the floor.”
   • Build: “We begin by building a rough version of your group’s design. This rough version is called a prototype. We do this in the same way that we would create a rough draft when we write. It’s okay to make mistakes, because that’s how we learn to make improvements. During construction, we frequently stop to test and retest our prototype. Then we ask: How can we improve it? Each time we make a change in our design, we retest our prototype. It does not need to be perfect. It just needs to work well enough to test out the features of your group’s design.”
   • Test: “Once we’ve built a Dash accessory that sweeps the floor, we must test it out. Does it work? Does it solve the problem? If not, can we tweak it in some way to make it work? Is the problem in the accessory or the program we’ve written? It’s okay to make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes and make changes, when needed. We can also get feedback from our peers and from the people who will be using the accessory. We can use that feedback to improve our designs!”

• What are the different stages of the Design Thinking Process?
• Why is it important to have different stages?
• What does the word “ideate” mean, and why is it an important part of the design process?
• Which stage is most important, and why?

Have students review and discuss this lesson’s coding concepts in groups. This can include:

Review how Repeat Until Loops repeat a set of instructions until a condition is met. Discuss situations in which this block could be helpful.

• For example, when playing Marco Polo with Dash, you could program Dash to repeat a set of instructions until Dash sees an obstacle in front.

Remind students that conditionals only run under certain events. Discuss real-world examples of If/Else Conditionals:

• “If it rains, I will bring my umbrella to school. [Or] Else if it does NOT rain, I will not.”
• Share how games incorporate If/Else conditionals. If relevant, reference the Level D unplugged activity involving cards and conditionals.
• If/Else Conditionals allow us to program Dash to react different ways depending on certain events.

Review how functions allow programmers to repeat parts of code over and over again. Unlike loops, you can repeat the function’s code in multiple places of the program.

• Share how functions are similar to the chorus of a song. If relevant, refer to the Level E unplugged activity about creating songs with functions.
• Remind students how the Call block allows students to call function in Blockly.

1. Divide the class into small groups (ideally 2–3 students per robot) and distribute a Design Thinking Workbook to each group.
2. Have groups use the Design Thinking Workbook to guide them through the design process. Make sure students get their work approved before they advance to the next design stage.
3. Share the Evaluation Rubric with the class so that students are aware of your learning and performance expectations.

Define the Problem

Have student groups use the Design Thinking Workbook to:

• Record the list of schoolwide problems that was created by the class.
• Discuss and add any other problems to the list.
• Narrow this list down to a top schoolwide problem.
• Explain the selected problem in detail.

Remind students that they may need to compromise.

Ideate

Have student groups use the Design Thinking Workbook to:

• Brainstorm and record possible solutions for their selected problem.
• Select their top solution.
• Explain the selected solution in detail with words and diagrams.

Plan

Have students use the Design Thinking Workbook to:

• Establish team roles such as:
  • Lead Programmer: Holds the tablet and integrates group member ideas to create the program in Blockly.
  • Documentarian: Records, writes, and/or draws all group results, thoughts, and progress. Illustrates group designs and ideas.
  • Lead Builder: Collects the materials needed to build the accessory. The lead builder oversees the building and testing of the prototype.
• Draft a design of their accessory idea for Dash.
  • Students can draw the design by hand or use an online program to design a 3D draft (e.g., Tinkercad).
  • An alternative would be to have students each create an individual sketch and then combine the best of their ideas based on group discussion.

Have each group share their design with a teacher or adult.

• Have students make any needed adjustments to their original plan based on teacher feedback.

Build

Have students use the Design Thinking Workbook to:

• Make a list of the recycled materials they will need to build a prototype of their design.
• Gather the necessary materials.
• Build the prototype.

Have each group share their prototype with the teacher.

• Have them make any needed adjustments based on the teacher’s feedback.

Program & Test

Have students use the Design Thinking Workbook to:

• Plan a program for Dash that will help demonstrate their accessory design.
• Use the Blockly app to develop their program.
• Record the results of their code and prototype.
• Make any improvements based on their test.

The program should contain criteria that you’ve established depending on students’ coding abilities. For example, the criteria could include: functions, repeat until loops, and/or conditionals.

• Remind students of the criteria (e.g., “Don’t forget to include a Function block and an If/Else block. Think about which portion of the program Dash must repeat more than once.”).

1. Discuss how important it is to understand other people’s struggles in order to identify schoolwide problems.
   • What types of problems affect us ALL in some way, even if it does not appear so directly (e.g., litter, healthy food options)?
   • Use examples from historical or current examples (e.g., civil rights movements, wildlife conservation).
2. Ask the class, “What kinds of problems do you run into around our school that are unjust or unfair?”
   • Select student volunteers to call out a few example problems (e.g., school bullying, lack of nutrition in school lunches, too much waste).
3. Work with the class to brainstorm similar schoolwide problems. List the problems on the whiteboard or poster paper.
   • Try to avoid smaller classroom problems and urge students to consider more universal problems that stem from larger social or emotional injustices.
   • Do not judge ideas as good or bad at this time.
   • Once you've gotten all ideas written down, read them aloud.
4. Discuss possible accessories that students could design for Dash to help solve some of the identified problems.
   • Could Dash tell a story to teach students about the benefits of eating healthy foods?
   • Could Dash help pick up litter after lunch?
5. Discuss how students could program Dash to demonstrate the accessory.
   • Could you use a function to have Dash sing a song about healthy foods?
   • Could you use a conditional to have Dash react to obstacles while picking up litter?

• What is the problem that you would like to solve?
• What will you build as an accessory for Dash to solve that problem?
• How will you use the blocks in Blockly to solve your problem?
• How could you include functions or conditionals in your program?
• Will you have Dash say something or make a sound?

It is recommended that students complete:

• Level A-E: All previous lessons
• [Optional] Level A-E Challenge Cards: All

You can purchase our Learn to Code Challenge Card sets and Curriculum Guide here: https://store.makewonder.com/#/education

• Fully charge the tablets and robots.
• Install the Wonder Workshop Blockly app on each tablet.
• Have recycled materials organized in a way that gives students easy access to them.