Sphero Electric Vehicles
The theme of this year's Festival of Learning (week of May 10th 2021) is "We are Makers". One of the 1 hour sessions we would like to do for Kindergarten - 5th grade is designing an Electric Vehicle powered with a Sphero robot. We will need to tailor the experience in order to ensure this activity is fun for every grade and matches the students abilities. This page outlines some of the ideas on how teachers can tailor the session for their classes.
Determine Parameters for the Activity
Prior to Festival of Learning - we can give teachers all the materials to build a pre-design Sphero car. Once they've built it, they will know how to adapt the project for their students.
Here are ideas of how this project can be adapted from easiest to hardest:
Here are ideas of how this project can be adapted if you let students design their own cars:
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Here is a video demonstrating using both the Sphero Play and Sphero EDU apps with the Sphero Bolt.
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Materials
We want to do this activity for the Festival of Learning and currently have an hour set aside. If teachers want to do more, here are some ideas on how to expand the scope of this activity:
Use Sphero's for something other than designing an EV. For example:
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Here is an example of how it might be tailored for different grades:
Here is an example of how 1st Grade is approaching the activity:
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Design Their Own Car Ideas
K'nex
Legos
Other Ideas
3D Printed Ideas
Wheel & Axle Design Ideas
Introducing the Project
Good simulation of how pistons work and burns fuel to power car.
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Spent fuel comes out the muffler as exhaust.
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G.M. Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2035
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Not the best - look for a better video
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