Read Works
Read Works: World's Greatest Robot
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about brothers who work together to plan the perfect robot. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Society for Science and the Public
Science News for Students: Color Changing Robot
Scientists at Harvard University recently invented a robot shaped like the letter "X" that can change its color to blend in with its surroundings. While this robot is currently limited to operating within a laboratory, it could...
ABCya
Ab Cya: Robot Islands 2
Our little robot friend is back in this fun game to help teach basic programming skills. Help guide the robot through each level by selecting a command and placing it on the map in the proper order. You'll have to use your problem...
ABCya
Ab Cya: Robot Islands
Robot Islands is a fun game to help teach basic programming skills. Help guide the robot through each level by selecting a command and placing it on the map in the proper order. You'll have to use your problem solving skills in order to...
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Nasa Robots
Basic lesson plan that helps students understand how robots perform simple activities in space.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Line Follower Challenge
Student groups are challenged to program robots with light sensors to follow a black line. Learning both the logic and skills behind programming robots for this challenge helps students improve their understanding of how robots work, and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sumobot Challenge
Students apply their knowledge of constructing and programming LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to create sumobots- strong robots capable of pushing other robots out of a ring.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Music by Touch
Through a hands-on design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots, students learn programming skills and logic design as they program robot computers to play sounds and rotate a wheel when a touch sensor is pressed, and then...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Follow the Light
A lesson involving LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and light sensors, student pairs program the robots to follow a flashlight as its light beam moves around.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Don't Bump Into Me!
Students' understanding of how robotic ultrasonic sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and ultrasonic sensors.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Gears: Determining Angular Velocity
Students work as engineers and learn to conduct controlled experiments by changing one experimental variable at a time to study its effect on the experiment outcome. Specifically, they conduct experiments to determine the angular...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Maze Challenge
As the first engineering design challenge of the unit, students are introduced to the logic for solving a maze. student groups apply that logic to program LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to navigate through a maze, first with no sensors, and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Hare and Snail Challenges
Students extend the ideas learned in the maze challenge in this unit with a focus more on the robot design. They learn how to design the gear train from the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT servomotor to the wheel to make the LEGO taskbot go faster...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Navigating a Maze
Students program LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to go through a maze using movement blocks.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Remote Control Using Bluetooth
Building on what they learned about wired and wireless electrical connections in the associated lesson, students use Android phones to take advantage of Bluetooth wireless connections to remotely guide LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots through...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Are Gears? What Do They Do?
Students are introduced to an important engineering element- the gear. This prepares them to apply this knowledge in four associated activities in order to create successful solutions to design challenges that use LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is Bluetooth?
Students learn about electrical connections, how they work, and their pervasiveness in our world. Two specific skills explored are Morse code and the function of Bluetooth. Using bluetooth, they control LEGO robots remotely from Android...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Timing a Speedbot!
Students strengthen their communication skills by first learning the meaning of base units and derived units. Then, working in groups, students measure the time for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and calculate the robots' average speeds at...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Car With a Lot of Potential
Working in teams, students perform quantitative observational experiments on the motion of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotic vehicles powered by the stored potential energy of rubber bands. Students understand that through the manipulation of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wait Program!
After completing an associated lesson, students test their understanding in two programming tasks that utilize LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and sound/touch sensors. Students gain practice in the iterative design-program-test-redesign process.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is a Computer Program?
Through four lesson and four activities, students are introduced to the logic behind programming using LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Do You Make Loops and Switches?
Students learn how to program using loops and switches. Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots, sensors and software, student pairs perform three mini programming activities using loops and switches individually, and then combined.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is a Motor? How Does a Rotation Sensor Work?
Students learn about electric motors and rotational sensors. They create a basic program using the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT interface to control a motor to move a small robot.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Fence That Farmland!
Students develop and solidify their understanding of the concept of perimeter as they engage in a portion of the civil engineering task of land surveying, using the technology of a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot to automate this task.