Hosted by OSOS , contributed by ssiouli on 8 October 2019
Inquiry based learning by the pupils on the Israeli mission to the moon, through the story of SpaceIL. SpaceIL is the only Israeli team participating in the international Google Lunar XPRIZE competition: a modern race to the Moon.
The pupils will learn about the mission, its history and its challenges. Through this they will learn in general about what it takes to conduct a space mission, what are challenges in navigating to the moon and making a safe landing on it, as well as what are the ethical questions in a mission like this.
The pupils will follow the spacecraft from its launch from (planned for December 2018) Cape Canarveral in Florida to its landing (planned for February 2019) on the surface of the moon.
In this adventure, SpaceIL is aiming to create a new "Apollo Effect" - names after the historical American missions to the moon. The goal is to inspire the next generation in Israel and around the world to choose to study science, technology, engineering and mathematicsa (STEM). This is a tremendous contribution to the community, as Israel faces a severe need for more scientists and engineeris.
The pupils will have opportunity to study the different aspects of such a mission through inquiery based learning. During that process they are to decide what they need to study – in working groups and with their teacher. Thus the solutions that will be achieved and the subjects that would have eventually been studied can take many directions. They will have assistance from the professinal staff of SpaceIL.
Links:
AVAILABLE PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
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Parents |
Participate in round tables and working with the pupils on the ethical issues raised during the year. |
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Academic Lecturers |
Mentoring in a Hackathon event, and lectures by researchers and experts from the academy on relevant topics. |
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Space industry |
Mentoring in a Hackathon event and lectures on relevant subjects. |
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Municipality |
Representatives from the department of education in the municipality will take part in the events. |
ssiouli@yahoo.gr
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The activities reported in this work were conducted at the Experimental Primary School of the University of Thessaloniki in the city of Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. For the first time and for the school year 2018-2019 a Robotics club “EV3 Junior Academy” was offered for 20 Year 6 students aged 12 years old, every Tuesday from 1:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. The club started in November and ended by May. The aim of the “EV3 Junior Academy” was to bring the possibilities of engineering to life for primary students and inspire them to solve challenging problems. The activities were all based around the Lego®Mindstorms®Education EV3 core set and EV3 software environment. Students that enrolled in this club had to solve problems like engineers, try different ideas, learn from mistakes and try again (design process). As the children and teacher who offered the Robotics club at the school were the first users of this new type of club and learning activity, their role as designers and developers of the environment and the pedagogy was significant.
The “EV3 Junior Academy” participants attended the club in their classroom once per week. Integration of technology into classroom instruction was particularly emphasized. There were:
- a SMART Board connected to the teacher’s computer and a digital projector in order to show the computer image. Students and teacher could control computer applications directly from the SMART Board display.
- One Lego®Mindstorms®EV3 core set for Education (robot kit) per group of 2 students.
- Lego®Mindstorms®Education EV3 app, free online
- Students of EV3 Junior Academy were encouraged to “bring their own device” (iPad loaded with EV3 app) to use in the class for educational purposes as school couldn’t provide them.
- Masking tape, tape measure and stopwatches for each group.
Initially, students had to download on their iPads the official programming app from Lego®Education. There are six Robot Educator tutorials providing an effective guide to programming and hardware. Teacher also provided students with step-by-step instructions for how to use LabVIEW graphical programming environment and EV3smart brick. During this introduction, students were able to: a) listen and actively participate by programming in LabVIEW and b) solve open-ended designed challenges that were provided by Lego®programming app. The graphical programming language facilitated the faster transition to more complex concepts by the end of the year 2018.
All hands-on challenges followed a similar structure and were based around constructivist learning ideals of project-based learning and the emerging concept of co-creation. The learning objectives of all activities were a) to increase students’ critical thinking skills, collaboration, communication and co-creation skills as well as the ability to design a solution to a challenge and b) to apply basic math functions, geometry and physics.
Worksheets were given to each working group on a range of different space activities and open-ended challenges. There was no single right answer and the difficulty was progressively increasing. Brainstorming was conducted with the scenario and objectives in mind in order to exchange thoughts and ideas, which may lead to a joint, possible solution. At that stage all students were continually challenging their own knowledge and the knowledge of their peers and were encouraged to come up with several ways of solving the problem. Before moving to the “build” step, teacher made sure that each group had settled on an specific idea to implement without giving too much direction that may discourage them from thinking themselves and discover answers. All activities were based around a single robot, the “SpaceRover”, which was used in all activities.Easy building instructions for this particular robot model were given to students on the first day of Robotics club. Students used the materials provided in the core set to build the “SpaceRover”.
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Our new “SpaceRover” had to explore the specific surface of a recently discovered planet. First challenge was to move on the surface and avoid obstacles that might stop robot from being able to explore. Six topics were covered: a) decimal and fractional numbers, b) diameter, c) circumference, d) distance, e) speed and f) power level. To perform the programming students used the “Move Steering” block located in the Action Blocks and also used ultrasonic sensor/infrared sensor or touch sensor to detect and avoid obstacles. Robot had to move a certain distance, avoiding any obstacle by turning right and go straight again. To figure how far the robot will drive, students had to calculate the distance covered by wheels in one rotation. This was an excellent opportunity to introduce the correlation between the diameter (doubled radius) of robot’s wheel and its circumference (circumference =πx diameter). The circumference of the wheel tells the distance a wheel travels in one revolution. Students were also encouraged to calculate the distance the robot will travel for each of the other two duration variables (degrees and seconds) (ex. 1 wheel rotation-360 degrees). They also realised that power level has a major affect on distance travelled, when using the time interval in seconds.
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Other challenges were to discover a) the effect of velocity on the distance the robot moves, b) the impact of friction on a certain distance and c) the effect that changing the time of travel of the robot has on the distance it moves. Main topics covered during these challenges were: a) decimal numbers and fractions, b) speed, c) velocity, d) distance, e) graphing and f) averaging data.
As a general rule, when a robot moves at constant velocity for a certain period of time, the distance it moves is “distance = vt”. I we know the time our robot takes to travel a certain distance, then the velocity can be calculated as “v = d/t”. With these data students plotted a graph for the velocity the robot travels and power levels applied to the motors (almost a linear relationship between velocity and power level).
Students run the same experiment with the same power level on different surfaces and confirmed that certain power of the robot’s motors doesn’t cause certain velocity and that the external environment has an impact on the amount of friction on the wheels. A smooth surface (like glass, polished wooded floor) will have less friction, meaning the robot will travel slightly faster. A carpeted surface with thin or thick carpet, mud or concrete floor texture will have more friction, meaning the robot will travel slightly slower. When plotting the gathered data, students found out that there is no linear relationship between the power level and the time taken to travel a certain distance.
When students tried to measure distance and time accurately by using stopwatches, they realised that velocity is “distance/time”. They also noticed that the longer a robot travels the further it travels. Students were also encouraged to take multiple runs and gather all data to reduce the impact of the experimental error. A graphs was plotted, for the distance travelled against the time taken (the linear relationship between time and distance was obvious).
Another challenge was to attach a marker or a chalk to the “SpaceRover” and program it to draw a shape (ex. square, triangle) on the surface of the planet. They used a large sheet of paper, markers and sticky tape to attach the marker to the front of the robot exactly in between the wheels. Three new topics were covered: a) number of sides, b) internal angle and c) external angle. Students had to understand the relationship between the number sides of regular polygons and the relationship between the number sides of a regular polygon and it’s exterior angle in order to calculate the internal and external angles of different shapes (pentagon, hexagon, octagon, triangle) by using equations. To perform the programming students used the “Move Steering” block located in the Action Blocks, “Loop” Block as a way of decreasing the number of blocks needed and “Wait” Blocks.
Students were also challenged to program “SpaceRover” to move from its starting area and navigate through a maze made of cardboard cartons by using or not using sensors (ultrasonic, touch, gyro). Students followed steps of the engineering design process to design and test programs to success. topics were covered: a) basic arithmetic, b) multiplication Some groups solved the maze using only basic “Move Steering” block to go forward and turn using rotations or degrees. Other groups used the ultrasonic sensor mode and “wait” block in order to wait for a specific amount of time or wait until some condition has been observed with the sensor and “Loop” block for avoiding the wall and repeat the instructions forever. The robot was driving forward, until it came within a certain distance from the wall and then turned without touching any walls along the way. Other groups used touch sensor to navigate through maze and “pushed” or “pushed/release” mode. GyroSensor and “Wait” block were also used by some groups in order to figure out how to calculate a 90-degree turn. GyroSensor is capable of measuring angles and “Change” mode was set.
Another challenge was to use colour sensor on the “SpaceRover” and initially to a) detect surface water on the planet and then b) stay away from the planet’s edges. The water was easy to spot due to its bright blue appearance. The rover had to navigate on the surface, locate water and announce that water has been found. Once water has been detected, students were encouraged to continue driving to find the next water source. In order to keep away from the planet’s edges, students used colour sensor to detect “no colour”. Once the rover had detected an edge they would have needed to navigate away from it.