The Guided Mission 2024-25

1. Prepare

• Read through the student material in the LEGO^® Education SPIKE^™ App.
• To complete this lesson, your students should build the Driving Base with Color Sensor.

2. Engage (10 min.)

• Use the ideas in the Ignite a Discussion section below to engage your students in a discussion related to this lesson.
• Use the video to explain the lesson.

3. Explore (30 min.)

• Ask them to set up the Guided Mission model on the game field.
• Have them follow the instructions to write a program to drive their robot to the model and activate it.

4. Explain (10 min.)

• Facilitate a discussion about the key functionalities of the robot in triggering the model to raise the connector.

5. Elaborate (40 min.)
Have each team practice lining up their robot and sending it on a mission to activate the model.

• Ask if they noticed anything they should be especially aware of for mission (e.g., it starts in the left launch area and ends in the right launch area, it passes other missions on the way).
• Prompt a discussion on what they have learned about following lines that could help them access other missions.
• Don’t forget to leave some time for cleanup.

6. Evaluate

• Give feedback on each student’s performance.
• You can use the assessment rubrics provided to simplify the process.

Use these questions to engage your students in a discussion about how they can use what they’ve learned so far to successfully complete this mission:

• What’s the robot doing?
• How does the robot reach the model?
• How does the robot activate the model?
• What’s the ideal balance between speed and accuracy for this mission?

Have your students watch the video to see what they’re about to do.

Setting Up the Guided Mission model
Share these tips with your students as they’re setting up the model:

• Check the Robot Game Rulebook for the correct position of the model on the mat.

• Make sure the model is built correctly and operates as it should.
• Carefully apply the Dual Lock and correctly position the model on the mat.

Simplify this lesson by:

• Review Training Camp 3 lesson plan, which explains the different ways to use the Color Sensor to follow a line (e.g., color mode or Reflected Light Intensity mode.)

Take this lesson to the next level by:

• Change the program to start from the right launch area.
• Assigning another one of this year’s FIRST LEGO League challenges to be done before or after this mission.

Teacher Observation Checklist
Create a scale that matches your needs, for example:
1. Partially accomplished
2. Fully accomplished
3. Overachieved

Use the following success criteria to evaluate your students’ progress:

• Students worked well as a team to complete the mission.
• Students worked together as a team to complete more missions in the same run.
• Students can present their robot, program, and mission strategy, explaining how they’ve successfully completed each mission.

Self-Assessment
Have each student choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.

• Blue: I’ve successfully completed one mission.
• Yellow: I’ve successfully completed more than one mission.
• Violet: Along with my team, I’ve presented our robot, program, and mission strategy to our coach with each team member participating.

Peer-Assessment
Encourage your students to provide feedback to others by:

• Having one student score the performance of another using the colored brick scale above.
• Asking them to present constructive feedback to each other so that they can improve their group’s performance during the next lesson.

To incorporate language arts skills development:

• Have your students prepare and deliver a presentation about how they developed an effective strategy for completing the mission in the shortest amount of time.

Note: This will make for a longer lesson.

Students who enjoyed this lesson might be interested in exploring these career pathways:

• Manufacturing and Engineering (Pre-Engineering)
• Information Technology (Computer Programming)