Robotics with Lego NXT

90 minutes for Years 4 to 9

Hands-on workshop for a maximum of 30 students.

Program your robot to move, sing, fetch a ball and interact with its environment. Work in teams to predict, test and evaluate. Robots, laptops and a programming session are provided by SciWorld in this 90 minute classroom activity that comes to your school. If you have Shockwave/Flash you can watch the 2:45 video here:

Room requirements

Set up time: 60 minutes. Pack up time: 45 minutes. A regular classroom (or bigger) is needed. Floorspace big enough for 30 students test robots, with wooden or lino floor surface preferred but carpet also appropriate. Students will work in pairs with a laptop, and laptops can bu used either at desks with chairs set up around the outside edge of the room (with empty floorspace in the middle), or on the floor.

Australian Curriculum links

Year 4

Science as a Human Endeavour

Nature and development of science: Science involves making predictions and describing patterns and relationships. Exploring ways in which scientists gather evidence for their ideas and develop explanations.

Science Inquiry Skills

Questioning and predicting: With guidance, identify questions in familiar contexts that can be investigated scientifically and predict what might happen based on prior knowledge. Working in groups to discuss things that might happen during an investigation.

Planning and conducting: Working in groups to test simple cause-and-effect relationships. Safely use appropriate materials, tools or equipment to make and record observations, using formal measurements. Considering safety rules for equipment used.

Evaluating: Reflect on the investigation, including whether a test was fair or not. Describing experiences of carrying out investigations to the teacher, small group or whole class.

Year 5 and 6

Science as a Human Endeavour

Nature and development of science: Science involves testing predictions using evidence to develop explanations of events and phenomena.

Use and influence of science: Scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions are used to solve problems that directly affect people's lives. Describing how technologies developed to aid space exploration have changed the way people live, work and communicate.

Science Inquiry Skills

Questioning and predicting: With guidance, pose questions to clarify practical problems or inform scientific investigation, and predict what the findings of an investigation might be. Applying experience from similar situations in the past to predict what may happen in a new situation. Sharing ideas about what may happen and why.

Evaluating: Suggest improvements to the methods used to investigate a question or solve a problem. Working collaboratively to suggest improvements to the methods used.

Year 7 and 8

Science as a Human Endeavour

Nature and development of science: Science knowledge can develop through collaboration and connecting ideas across science. Scientific knowledge changes as new evidence becomes available, and some scientific discoveries have significantly changed people's understanding of the world.

Use and influence of science: Science and technology contribute to finding solutions to a range of contemporary issues; these solutions may impact on other areas of society and involve ethical considerations.

Science Inquiry Skills

Questioning and predicting: Identify questions and problems that can be investigated scientifically and make predictions based on scientific knowledge. Working collaboratively. Using information and knowledge from previous investigations to predict the expected results from an investigation.

Evaluating: Reflect on the method used to investigate a question or solve a problem, including evaluating the quality of the data collected, and identify improvements to the method. Suggesting improvements to inquiry methods based on experience.

Year 9

Science as a Human Endeavour

Nature and development of science: Scientific understanding, including models and theories, are contestable and are refined over time through a process of review by the scientific community. Advances in scientific understanding often rely on developments in technology and technological advances are often linked to scientific discoveries.