This activity helps students understand the significance of programming and also how the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robot's sensors assist its movement and make programming easier. Students compare human senses to robot sensors, describing similarities and differences.

Students' understanding of how robotic touch sensors work is reinforced through a hands-on design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT intelligent bricks, motors and touch sensors. They learn programming skills and logic design in parallel as they program robot computers to play sounds and rotate a wheel when a touch sensor is pressed, and then produce different responses if a different touch sensor is activated. Students see first-hand how robots can take input from sensors and use it to make decisions to move as programmed, including simultaneously moving a motor and playing music. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

Using new knowledge acquired in the associated lesson, students program LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots to go through a maze using movement blocks. The maze is created on the classroom floor with cardboard boxes as its walls. Student pairs follow the steps of the engineering design process to brainstorm, design and test programs to success. Through this activity, students understand how to create and test a basic program. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and worksheet are provided.

Students learn about the human body's system components, specifically its sensory systems, nervous system and brain, while comparing them to robot system components, such as sensors and computers. The unit's life sciences-to-engineering comparison is accomplished through three lessons and five activities. The important framework of "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" is introduced to show how it improves our understanding the cause-effect relationships of both systems. This framework reinforces the theme of the human body as a system from the perspective of an engineer. This unit is the second of a series, intended to follow the Humans Are Like Robots unit.

Students observe and test their reflexes, including the (involuntary) pupillary response and (voluntary) reaction times using their dominant and non-dominant hands, as a way to further explore how reflexes occur in humans. They gain insights into how our bodies react to stimuli, and how some reactions and body movements are controlled automatically, without conscious thought. Using information from the associated lesson about how robots react to situations, including the stimulus-to-response framework, students see how engineers use human reflexes as examples for controls for robots.

Students learn about human reflexes, how our bodies react to stimuli and how some body reactions and movements are controlled automatically, without thinking consciously about the movement or responses. In the associated activity, students explore how reflexes work in the human body by observing an involuntary human reflex and testing their own reaction times using dominant and non-dominant hands. Once students understand the stimulus-to-response framework components as a way to describe human reflexes and reactions in certain situations, they connect this knowledge to how robots can be programmed to conduct similar reactions.

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(TM) NXT robots through a maze. They compare this wireless remote control navigation to their previous experiences navigating LEGO robots via programming. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

Through the two lessons and five activities in this unit, students' knowledge of sensors and motors is integrated with programming logic as they perform complex tasks using LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots and software. First, students are introduced to the discipline of engineering and "design" in general terms. Then in five challenge activities, student teams program LEGO robots to travel a maze, go as fast/slow as possible, push another robot, follow a line, and play soccer with other robots. This fifth unit in the series builds on the previous units and reinforces the theme of the human body as a system with sensors performing useful functions, not unlike robots. Through these design challenges, students become familiar with the steps of the engineering design process and come to understand how science, math and engineering including computer programming are used to tackle design challenges and help people solve real problems. PowerPoint® presentations, quizzes and worksheets are provided throughout the unit.

Students continue to build a rigorous background in human sensors and their engineering equivalents by learning about electronic touch, light, sound and ultrasonic sensors that measure physical quantities somewhat like eyes, ears and skin. Specifically, they learn about microphones as one example of sound sensors, how sounds differ (intensity, pitch) and the components of sound waves (wavelength, period, frequency, amplitude). Using microphones connected to computers running (free) Audacity® software, student teams experiment with machine-generated sounds and their own voices and observe the resulting sound waves on the screen, helping them to understand that sounds are waves. Students take pre/post quizzes, complete a worksheet and watch two short online videos about "seeing" sound.

Students learn how two LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT intelligent bricks can be programmed so that one can remotely control the other. They learn about the components and functionality in the (provided) controller and receiver programs. When its buttons are pressed, the NXT brick assigned as the remote control device uses the controller program to send Bluetooth® messages. When the NXT taskbot/brick assigned as the receiver receives certain Bluetooth messages, it moves, as specified by the receiver program. Students examine how the programs and devices work in tandem, gaining skills as they play "robot soccer." As the concluding activity in this unit, this activity provides a deeper dimension of understanding programming logic compared to previous activities in this unit and introduces the relatively new and growing concept of wireless communication. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

Why do humans have two ears? How do the properties of sound help with directional hearing? Students learn about directional hearing and how our brains determine the direction of sounds by the difference in time between arrival of sound waves at our right and left ears. Student pairs use experimental set-ups that include the headset portions of stethoscopes to investigate directional hearing by testing each other's ability to identify the direction from which sounds originate.

Students apply their knowledge of constructing and programming LEGO MINDSTORMS (TM)NXT robots to create sumobots - strong robots capable of pushing other robots out of a ring. To meet the challenge, groups follow the steps of the engineering design process and consider robot structure, weight and gear ratios in their designs to make their robots push as hard as possible to force robot opponents out of the ring. A class competition serves as the final test to determine the best designed robot, illustrating the interrelationships between designing, building and programming. This activity gives students the opportunity to be creative as well as have fun applying and combining what they have learned through the previous activities and lessons in this and prior units in the series. A PowerPoint (tm) presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

With the challenge to program computers to mimic the human reaction after touching a hot object, students program LEGO® robots to "react" and move back quickly once their touch sensors bump into something. By relating human senses to electronic sensors used in robots, students see the similarities between the human brain and its engineering counterpart, the computer, and come to better understand the functioning of sensors in both applications. They apply an understanding of the human "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" framework to logically understand human and robot actions.

This activity helps students understand how a LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robot moves using motors and wheels. Then students relate the concepts of decision-making actuation and motion in humans to their parallels in mechanized robots, and understand the common themes associated with movement.

Students are given a difficult challenge that requires they integrate what they have learned so far in the unit about wait blocks, loops and switches. They incorporate these tools into their programming of the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots to perform different tasks depending on input from a sound sensor and two touch sensors. This activity helps students understand how similar logic is implemented for other every day device operations via computer programs. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and worksheet are provided.

After completing the associated lesson, students test their understanding in two programming tasks that utilize LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots and sound/touch sensors. In the first challenge, students become acquainted with wait blocks by designing programs to simply make robots move forward until "hearing" a noise, and then turn left. The second, more challenging activity pushes students to fully understand the potential of wait blocks. They create programs that make the robots change speed several times when a touch sensor is pressed. Students gain practice in the iterative design-program-test-redesign process. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and worksheet are provided.

Students learn about electrical connections, how they work and their pervasiveness in our world. They consider the usefulness of wireless electrical connections for connecting electrical devices. Morse code is introduced as a communication method that takes advantage of on/off states to transmit messages by electrical bursts sent via wires, light or sound. They learn the Morse code rules and translate a few phrases into Morse code. Specifically, they learn about a wireless connection type known as Bluetooth that can be used to control LEGO robots remotely from Android devices, which leads into the associated activity.

Students are presented with an overview of engineering and design. Various engineering disciplines are discussed in some detail using slides and an online video and website. The concept of design is introduced by presenting the basic steps of the engineering design process. Students learn that design is not necessarily restricted to engineering, but a general concept applicable to all walks of life. To strengthen their understanding, students are challenged to design a picnic for their friends by considering its various components as they go through the design process steps. This prepares them for subsequent design challenges such as those in the associated activities of this unit. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and worksheet are provided.

Through four lesson and four activities, students are introduced to the logic behind programming. Starting with very basic commands, they develop programming skills while they create and test programs using LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots. Students apply new programming tools move blocks, wait blocks, loops and switches in order to better navigate robots through mazes. Through programming challenges, they become familiar with the steps of the engineering design process. The unit is designed to be motivational for student learning, so they view programming as a fun activity. This unit is the third in a series. PowerPoint® presentations, quizzes and worksheets are provided throughout the unit.

Students learn about electric motors and rotational sensors. They learn that motors convert electrical energy to mechanical energy and typically include rotational sensors to enable distance measuring. They also learn the basics about gear trains and gear ratios. Students create a basic program using the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT interface to control a motor to move a small robot. Then, through a 10-minute mini-activity, they make measurements and observations to test a LEGO rotation sensor's ability to measure distance in rotations. This prepares them for the associated activity during which they calculate how many wheel rotations are needed to travel a distance. A PowerPoint® presentation, worksheet and pre/post quizzes are provided.