Robot Dance Party! Coding with Blocks!

Foundational Concepts (Elementary School)

3. Robot Dance Party! Coding with Blocks!

Have you ever wanted to tell a robot what to do? You can! It’s called "coding," and it’s like giving your robot a list of instructions to follow. Imagine you have a Sphero robot, which is a cool little ball that can roll and light up. Or maybe an Ozobot, a tiny robot that follows lines. You can make them dance!

How do you do it? We use something called "block-based programming." It's like putting LEGO bricks together, but instead of building a house, you're building a list of commands for your robot. You might drag a block that says "move forward," then another block that says "turn right," and then a block that says "change color to blue." Each block is a step in your robot's dance.

When you put all these blocks in order, you're creating a "sequence" – a list of things for the robot to do, one after the other. It's like writing a recipe for your robot! Once you press "go," your Sphero might roll forward, then spin around, and then flash different colors, all because you told it exactly what to do using your blocks. Coding is super fun because you get to be the boss and tell your robot to do amazing things!