Base-2 and Base-10 systems differ in what each place value represents. Before class, teacher programs Bar Graph Cubelets using the “Binary” Personality Swap. After introducing the concept of binary counting, students read a variety of numbers from the Personality Swapped Bar Graph and compare their answers using the Remote Control “Read” function. This lesson is one investigation within a larger learning chunk. Consider also counting in binary using your fingers.

Students choose a Personality Swap they find useful or fun (ie. Wacky Blinker or Two-Way Rotate) and write their own Blockly code to mimic and customize that Personality. Consider ideas like sending a different message than SOS in Morse Code, changing the blinking pattern in Wacky Blinker or tweaking when the Two-Way Rotate changes direction. Check out Create with Cubelets for some videos to help students get started using Cubelets Blockly!

Students design robots that represent specific characters in a text they are reading. Robot constructions can be as simple as a Fraidy-Bot or Cuddle-Bot or much more complicated. What is the character afraid of? What does the character love? What is the most important character trait? The magic comes in students’ explanations of how their robot construction represents the character. Responses could be oral or written.

Students design a robot then write a narrative that includes the robot as either a character or part of the setting. This is a great anchor for fictional narrative writing units. Here are some student resources that could help you or your students.

• Primary Beginning-Middle-End Planning Document
• Intermediate/Middle School Fiction Narrative Planning Document

Students design robots and then describe their designs to each other. Students focus on accurately using relative language such as above, below, behind, in front.

Students use Cubelets as their experimentation and iterative tool to address a Design Thinking Challenge. Students could also use Cubelets as the improvement challenge to address during the Discovery-Interpretation-Ideation stages.
Prompts for design challenges could include:

• Race your Cubelets
• Make a Player Piano
• Make a Maze-Solver Robot
• Make a Line-Follower Robot
• Make a robot that can steer with only one Drive Cubelet
• Make a parade float
• Make a Monster Seeker for before going to bed
• Make a robot that can help someone who is visually impaired safely navigate the classroom

Because each Cubelet has its own unique function, Cubelets lend themselves to modeling (or imagining!) animal adaptations. Using a combination of Cubelets, Legos (or other brick building blocks), and craft materials, try giving students an opportunity to represent a real-world animal using Cubelets and then ask them to design an imaginary animal for a new environment. This activity works very well when animals are measured by their ability to “locate food”. Food could be a bright light bulb in a dark room or squares of black tape on a bright-white table (black marker does not work, but black electrical tape and black painters tape do) or boxes on an otherwise empty floor. You could also test the animals by their abilities to avoid predators or potential hazards in their environment. Choose one of these tests, not both!

Cubelets were originally designed to showcase emergent behavior of which there are many examples in the natural world. Some quick examples include ants, bees, termites, birds, and coral reefs. These communities do not have “leaders” to assign roles or tasks to all the others. Instead, each individual within the community follows a few sets of rules and the results of all of the organisms doing their job include intricate ant hills, beehives, and bird flying patterns. Cubelets function in much the same way – each Cubelet only does its own job or function, but when we combine them (the more, the better) the resultant construction exhibits an overall behavior that is different from any individual Cubelet.

One common symptom of extreme weather is a lack of visibility and often a lack of power. Based on whichever Extreme Weather event your class is focusing on, you might ask students to design a robot that can navigate through the darkness to either find people stuck in the storm or guide them out of the storm.

Demonstrate amplitude versus frequency with this robot construction. Change the amplitude by waving your hand higher or lower above the SENSE Cubelet. Change the frequency by waving your hand at different speeds.

Cubelets make an excellent spinning table on which students can draw on cardstock or paper plates, then measure the frequency and amplitude of waves.

Cubelets can certainly be used to model the flow of energy in a system, but it is important to remember that Cubelets receive their energy from the Battery Cubelet not the SENSE Cubelet, and the transfer between Cubelets is actually due to the movement of data, not electricity. There is a constant electrical flow throughout a Cubelets robot construction. It is unaffected even by a Blocker Cubelet.

Students design robots that have wheels facing the same direction, then facing away from each other (pulling), and then facing toward each other (pushing). Students compare how the robot moves as they adjust each SENSE Cubelet independently. First turning one all the way up, then turning the other all the way up. Students practice recording their results during the investigation.

Students use either a Bar Graph Cubelet or the Cubelets app to investigate the weighted average of multiple senses in one robot construction.

Students investigate each SENSE Cubelet to determine how the environment is translated into SENSE Values using either the Bar Graph Cubelet or the Cubelets App. [Closer objects and brighter lights translate to higher SENSE Values.]

Students design robots to race across a set distance. They measure how long it takes each robot to cross the finish line, translate that into unit rates, and compare their rates to confirm the winner. Try changing the length of the course or giving students the opportunity to iteratively redesign their robots and recalculate their updated results.

(Before you begin this activity, decide whether students will be using Bar Graph Cubelets (1-10) or the Cubelets App (1-255 to confirm their hypotheses.) Students draw data flow diagrams of simple robot constructions and hypothesize what the block values of each Cubelet are at various points during the robot’s movements. Then students collect data using either the Bar Graph Cubelet or Cubelets App to check their hypotheses.

Students build robots and then describe them using fractions. How many Cubelets in the robot are SENSE Cubelets? How many are ACT Cubelets? How many are SENSE Cubelets? Students can also describe the robots of the entire class. How many robots use a Distance Cubelet? How many use a Brightness Cubelet?

Students measure data value of a Cubelet using a Bar Graph (denominator is 10), then write equivalent fractions for that value. Compare equivalent fractions to the data flow measured using the Remote Control “Read” function of the Cubelets App (denominator is 255). Discuss how equivalent (or not) the two values are. Which is more useful? Why?