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The Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

Cotton Ball Launcher Experiment for Edison Robots

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Cotton Ball Launcher Experiment for Edison Robots

A 6th-8th grade STEM lesson

Carrie Jenkins

6/4/24

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Notes for teachers

This lesson can be taught in a regular classroom setting or in a club.

Students will work in small groups (2-3 students is ideal)

This lesson is designed to take 3 class periods but may take longer. depending on how long your class/club sessions are.

It is important that students are already familiar with Edison Robots and have some experience coding with EdBlocks.

Make sure all the batteries are fully charged prior to the lesson.

Students will construct their own cotton ball launcher for their robot and will set up their launching site.

Students will design a repeatable experiment.

Students will explore variables in an experiment.

You can also have students create graphs using graph paper instead of using the graphing website.

List of Materials

Edison Robots V2 (2 per group of 2-3 students)
EdCreate Kit (1 per group)
EdBlocks Program
Battery Charger
Batteries (4 AAA per robot)
Experiment Design Template (Handout for each student)
pieces of white paper (letter size, legal size or butcher paper) or white poster board
Ipad, Chromebook, or laptop for each group
EdComm cables (one for each group)
Electrical Tape (1 roll per group) or black sharpie markers
thin cardboard
scissors--1 pair for each group
tape (masking, scotch or duct tape)
cotton balls--one or two for each group
tape measure (metric) or meter stick
Bar Graph Maker Website or graph paper

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Resources

EdCreate Challenges

EdCreate Teachers Guide

https://meetedison.com/content/EdCreate/EdCreate-EdChallenges.pdf

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Arizona Science Standards

6.P4U2.5 Analyze how humans use technology to store (potential) and/or use (kinetic) energy.

● Objects can have stored energy (that is, the ability to make things change) either because of their chemical composition, their movement, their temperature, their position in a gravitational or other field.

● Motion energy is properly called kinetic energy; it is proportional to the mass of the moving object and grows with the square of its speed.

● A system of objects may also contain stored (potential) energy, depending on their relative positions.

Science and Engineering Practices

ask questions and define problems
develop and use models
plan and carry out investigations
analyze and interpret data
use mathematics and computational thinking
construct explanations and design solutions
engage in argument from evidence
obtain, evaluate, and communicate information

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Computer Science Practices

Computer Science Standards

6.CS.T.1 Identify problems that can occur in computing devices and their components within a system.

6.CS.HS.1 Explain how hardware and software can be used to collect and exchange data.

6.AP.C.1, 7.AP.C.1, 8.AP.C.1 Design programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals.

6.AP.M.2 Use procedures to organize code and make it easier to reuse.

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Arizona Educational Technology Standards

Computational Thinker - Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

6-8.1.d. Students navigate a variety of technologies and transfer their skills to troubleshoot and learn how to use new technologies

6-8.3.d. Students explore real world problems and issues and actively pursue solutions for them.

6-8.4.c. Students engage in a design process to develop, test, and revise prototypes, embrace the iterative process of trial and error, and understand setbacks as potential opportunities for improvement.

6-8.4.d. Students demonstrate an ability to persevere and handle greater ambiguity as they work to solve open-ended problems.

6-8.5.a. Students practice defining and solving problems by selecting technology for data analysis, modeling, and algorithmic thinking.

6-8.5.c. Students break problems into component parts, identify key pieces, and use that information to solve problems.

6-8.7.c. Students perform a variety of roles within a team, using age-appropriate technology to complete a project or solve a problem.

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Objective(s):

Today we will review the features of Edison Robots and how to use the EdBlocks coding program.
Today we will engineer a cotton ball launcher using the Edison robots.
Today we will design an experiment to test different lengths of launching arms to determine which one will launch a cotton ball the furthest distance.
Today we will analyze the results of our experiment to write a scientific conclusion.

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Intro/Driving Question/Opening

How can we engineer the EdTank into a cotton ball launcher?

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Agenda (Day 1-- One Class Period)

Review the parts of the Edison Robot.
Build the EdTank (minus the cannon/rubber band shooter).
Review how to program Edison using EdBlocks.
Engineer a launcher that can attach to Edison’s launch arm and launch a cotton ball.
Program both robots in the EdTank to launch a cotton ball.

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Edison’s Structure (Top)

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Edison’s Structure (Bottom)

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Hands-on Activity Scenario

Adapted from EdCreate Programming Project--Fire Fighting Water Cannon

Fighting fires is a dangerous but necessary task. When terrible fires break out, the conditions can become extremely dangerous for humans. One way to help fight these fires is by using firefighting robots.

For this scenario, the EdTank is a water cannon

that can shoot a jet of water or fire retardant

(represented by the cotton ball) to help fight

a fire.

https://www.elprocus.com/projects-on-fire-fighting-robotic-vehicle/

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Hands-on Activity Scenario

Adapted from EdCreate Programming Project--Fire Fighting Water Cannon

Set-Up

Create two parallel black lines on a white surface, such as a large piece of paper, or poster board. The black lines should be approximately 1.5 cm wide. You can put them as far apart from each other as you like. One black line represents the firefighting team’s base (start), and the other represents the ‘ash line’ beyond which the fire is burning.

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Hands-on Activity Instructions

In groups of 2-3 students.

Build the EdTank using the EdCreate Kit

EdTank Instruction Video

EdTank Visual Instructions

Engineer a launcher that can attach to Edison’s launch arm and launch a cotton ball.

Program both robots in the EdTank to launch a cotton ball.

https://meetedison.com/content/EdCreate/EdBuild-EdTank-instructions.pdf

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Engineering a Cotton Ball Launcher

Build your own cotton ball launcher that will attach to an ‘arm’ connected to the motor on the top robot.

Materials:

cardboard

scissors

tape (masking, scotch, or duct)

Considerations:

--be careful that your launcher is not too heavy

--be careful that your launcher is not too large

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Engineering a Cotton Ball Launcher (Samples)

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Review of EdBlocks (Video)

https://meetedison.com/edblocks-block-based-programming-language-edison-robot/

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Programming the Edison Robots

Write a set of programs in EdBlocks to control the EdTank so that the robot will drive until it encounters the ‘ash line’ (i.e. black line), stop, shoot out its water payload (i.e. launch the cotton ball) and return to the firefighting team’s base (i.e. original black line).

Both the top and bottom Edison robots will need to be programmed separately to complete this task.

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Programming the Edison Robots (Possible Solution)

*Note* The time values on the blocks may need to be adjusted.

Top Robot (Cotton Ball Launcher)

This program has the bottom (driving) robot first wait to receive an orange message. When the play (triangle) button on the bottom robot is pushed, this program will start, but will then ‘wait for’ the orange message before continuing with the program. This will allow students time to connect the top Edison to the bottom Edison. Once the play (triangle) button on the top robot is pushed, and the bottom robot receives the orange message, this program will continue. Thus, the bottom Edison will drive while on a white surface, but stop when not on a white surface (i.e. when it encounters a black surface). It will then send out the purple message to the top robot. The bottom robot then waits until it receives the blue message before continuing. Once the bottom robot receives that blue message, it backs up, turns around and drives forward while on a white surface until it encounters a black surface, at which point the program ends.

When the play (triangle) button on the top robot is pushed, this program will first send out an orange message, triggering the bottom robot to continue its program. The top robot will then wait until it receives the purple message, which will trigger it to continue its program. The top robot will fire off the ‘water cannon’ and then send out the blue message to signal it has completed the task.

Things to look out for:

• These programs use Edison’s IR messages. Each message only fires out once. Occasionally, the receiving Edison can miss the message when it is sent, causing the whole program to stop as the receiving Edison is still waiting for the message. If students encounter this issue, simply have them reset and run the program again from the start. (They do not need to reprogram the 8 Edison robots – just push stop on each, then restart each robot’s program by pushing the play button on each in the correct order.)

• The top and bottom Edison robots will need to be separated to program each one, as well as to push the start or stop buttons on the bottom robot.

• Once both robots are programmed, press the play (triangle) button on the bottom robot, then re-attach the top robot. Set up the rubber band cannon and place the robot on a white surface in front of the firefighting team’s base (i.e. original black line) with the EdTank pointing towards the ‘ash line’. When this is set up, press the play (triangle) button on the top robot.

• If multiple students are running programs using the same coloured messages in close physical proximity to each other, they may experience ‘cross-talk’ where one set of robots receives and reacts to the message from a different set of robots.

• Students will need to experiment with the drive times to optimise how the robots perform in their physical set-up.

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Programming a Remote with Barcodes

The bottom robot can also be programmed to respond to a remote control. Then, a program can be written for the top robot to use the motor to move the arm for launching the cotton ball. This would avoid the use of messaging between the robots.

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Agenda (Day 2--One Class Period)

Set up cotton ball launch experiment
Write a research question
Write a hypothesis
Identify variables
Write a procedure
Create a data table to collect data

Collect data!

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Intro/Driving Question/Opening

Does the length of the launching arm affect how far the cotton ball will travel?

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Hands-on Activity Instructions

Maintain the same groups of 2-3 students that were created on Day 1 of the lesson.

Set up Cotton Ball Launch Experiment

Assist students in filling out the Controlled Experiment Template

Collect data!

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Discuss A Testable Research Question

We have several materials that can change the length of our launching ‘arm’. Do you think that the length of the arm will change how far the cotton ball will travel?
What is our testable research question?

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Research Question: Does the length of the ‘arm’ affect how far the cotton ball will travel?

Distribute Controlled Experiment Worksheet (note to teacher: template link in speaker notes)

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Discuss Variables

Independent variable (what are we changing?):

Length of launching arm

Dependent variable (what are we measuring)?

how far the cotton ball travels

Controlled variables (what are we keeping the same)?

same cotton ball, same coded program, same robot being used, same launcher, same starting position of arm, measuring the distance from same starting location

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Discussion & Predictions

What do you think will happen when we change the length of the arm? Why?

What pieces/materials might we use to change arm length?

Will the cotton ball’s travel distance change?

Why do you think that?

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Write a Hypothesis

If the distance the cotton ball travels (DV) is related to the length of the launching arm (IV)

then a longer arm/shorter arm (IV) will cause the cotton ball to travel a further/shorter distance (DV prediction)

because...

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Write a Procedure

Develop a common procedure that all groups will follow to conduct the controlled experiment.

Sample Procedure:

Make sure your Set-Up (from slide is complete and your robots are programmed.
Attach the smallest arm to the motor.
Attach the cardboard launcher that you engineered to the arm.
Run the program and launch the cotton ball.
Carefully measure the distance the cotton ball traveled (in centimeters) and record it in your data table.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for two more trials.
Take off the small arm and replace it with the medium length arm.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 three times for a total of three trials.
Take off the medium arm and replace it with the longest arm.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 three times for a total of three trials.
Calculate the mean (Average) of the three trials for each arm length.

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Collect your data!

This is an example of how you could organize your data table. The data table in the experiment template will need to be modified for this experiment.

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Agenda (Day 3--One Class Period)

Calculate the mean (average) of the trials of each arm length.
Analyze data to answer the research question.

Graph data using the Bar Graph Maker Website or graph paper.

Answer the research question using evidence (data).

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Intro/Driving Question/Opening

How can we use data as evidence to answer our research question?

https://sharingtree.blog/2022/07/13/claim-evidence-reasoning-cer-templates/

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Hands-on Activity Instructions

Think-Pair-Share

Give students individual think time to make observations of the data.
Pair groups to share their observations with each other.
Share out observations as a whole class.

Point out interesting or unusual data points--introduce possible sources of error

Graph data

Have students determine what to graph in order to answer research question

Analyze
Answer research question

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Formative Assessment Ideas

Teacher should be constantly circulating while students are working to observe successes and challenges of each group. Mini lessons can then be developed as needed based on student needs.

Other Formative Assessment Ideas:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-smart-fast-ways-do-formative-assessment/

56 Formative Assessment Examples from AZ Department of Education

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Summative Assessment Ideas

Write a conclusion to summarize what was learned in this experiment using the CER format. Make sure to use data to support your claim. Make a claim about the length of the launching arm and use evidence (data) to support your claim.

Is your Experimental Design Complete?

Do you have a research question?
Do you have a hypothesis?
Have you accurately identified your variables?

Independent variable?
Dependent variable?
Controlled variables?

Do you have a procedure?
Do you have data and a graph?
Do you have a conclusion?

Develop a rubric to assess the code written by the students as well as the engineering of their launching system.

A rubric can also be used to assess the experiment’s report.

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Differentiation

Walk students through the building of the EdTank step by step.
Provide students with the code to operate the launching system.
Have most parts of the experiment pre-entered into experiment design template where students only have to add certain parts (research question or variables)
Have students organized in strategic groups.
Model how to create a bar graph using a projector & the graphing website.
Have a “cloze” conclusion available for students who may need it.
Provide students with sentence starters for their conclusion.
Show students an example of a conclusion and highlight the key elements you are expecting students to have in their conclusion.

Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

Have students write a program in EdScratch or EdPy to perform the same experiment.

Students can continue to find more effective ways to engineer their launcher.

Students can design another experiment related to their launcher: test the distance different sized materials travel, test materials of different weights to see how far they travel.