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Notes for Teachers

Students will use their collected data from the previous lesson to analyze the data and refine their prediction scheme to allow for predictions of the distance traveled for a greater variety of lengths.

The end goal will be to use their data and program a Sphero to travel a course using block programming.

List of Materials

Sphero Bots
The Sphero Edu app
Tape Measure
Something like tape, to make the starting point and other points.
Data Collection

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Standards

Computer Science - .DA.

CVT.1 Collect and analyze data using computational tools to create models that are meaningful and useful.

As students continue to build on their ability to organize and present data visually to support a claim, they will need to understand when and how to transform data for this purpose. For example, students use computational tools such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to solve a problem that is relevant and meaningful.

Practice(s): Testing and Refining Computational Artifacts: 6.3

Math - 7.SP.B.4

Use measures of center and measures of variability for numerical data from random samples to draw informal comparative inferences about two populations. For example, decide whether the words in a chapter of a seventh-grade science book are generally longer than the words in a chapter of a fourth-grade science book

7.SP.B.3: Informally assess data overlap.

Science and Engineering Practices

Plan and carry our investigations

Use mathematical and computational thinking

Crosscutting Concepts

scale proportionality

cause and effect

patterns

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Objective(s): Data Analysis

Students will refine the calculations made previously.

Students will organize data.

Students will graph their data.

Students will be able to interpret the Mean Standard Deviation (MAD).

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Agenda 50 - 70 minutes

Introduction - 5 minutes

Students gather initial data - 15-20 minutes

Students are taught how to find the mean and MAD, and graph the data points - 15 minutes

Students verify that sphero will stop within 1 deviation in 2 of 4 trials. 10 - 15 minutes

Students are assessed 10 minutes.

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Intro/Driving Question/Opening

The STEM Club at a school wants to create a challenge for students interested in joining a competition. They want to be able to give students a map of an Sphero maze and have them use block coding to program the bot to travel through the maze without the bot going out of bounds. Today we will work on part 2.

Driving Question: How can we use centers of measure to help us interpret data and make decisions based on the data collected? Which center of measure is most useful, and does this change depending on the situation?

The challenge has four parts:

Make reliable predictions about the distance a bot will travel at a certain speed for a set amount of time.
Represent data collected visually and use data to refine prediction abilities.
Using complementary and supplementary angles to navigate, and verifying the bot’s accuracy.
Navigating a maze using calculations from the dimensions of the maze using block programming.

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Hands-on Activity Instructions

Students can work in groups of 3 or 4.

Students will use their data to determine the average distance the Sphero traveled at a given speed and set time. The mean distance should be marked by the students.
Teacher will give a brief explanation of MAD and how to use it, and then have students mark of the distance of one deviation both plus and minus. Students will then run 5 - 10 trials to see if most of the time the sphero stops within 1 MAD.

Start

Mean

-1 Deviation

+1 Deviation

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Assessment

Students will be asked to use the average rate of speed that they calculated and verified. Then they will make a prediction for the distance the sphero will travel using the same speed setting but given a new time of travel. The assessment will be to see if the students prediction for the distance is mathematically accurate.

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Differentiation

Students that are having trouble with the calculation can be given the distance formula with each component as the subject.
Provide extra time as needed.
Strategically pair students as needed.

Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

Challenge students by having them make predictions for the distance from different times of travel and then use the Sphero to verify the accuracy of the their predictions.

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