Preparing for the Finals

Zero Robotics Website (review tutorials / game overview)

Today's Agenda:

1. 15 minutes: Welcome, Game, & Overview
2. 45 minutes: Create Video to Highlight Our Team
3. (concurrently) 45 minutes: Revise the winning strategy from the Boys & Girls Clug, Jonathan & Anderley's regional competition code, or your own code: Work to make changes that will improve the score even more!
• You may want to refer back to these resources: 
• the Introduction to Game Mode tutorial, in which you will learn to use the game mode (as opposed to the free mode that you have been using up to this point). 
• the game manual with very detailed information about the competition and rules of the game 
• the game overview slideshow, with directions for how to complete most advanced functions of the game (it's a review of the skills challenges) 
• the results of the practice regional competitions and the results of California regional competition -- simulations of teams include:
• Buchanan YMCA (red) vs. YMCA of Silicon Valley (blue)
• Buchanan YMCA (red) vs. Boys and Girls Club (blue)
• Boys and Girls Club (red) vs. YMCA of Silicon Valley (blue)
• If you are finished early, continue working on Scratch, or explore the activities at the bottom of this site.
4. (concurrently) 30 minutes: Searching for Whatever Else is Out There
• In the fall of 2012, NASA landed the Mars rover Curiosity. Much of the nation–and the world–was captivated by this incredible engineering feat. It may be difficult to imagine what it took to get the rover to Mars–and what it will take to continue planetary exploration–but you can get a sense by exploring the following resources:
• Mars Rover Kids site
• Videos about the Mars Rover
• Fun facts about Mars
5. 15 minutes: Break
6. 45 minutes: Complete a Tynker coding challenge
7. 10 minutes: NASA Says...
8. 35 minutes: Play Code Avengers
9. 15 minutes: Reflection, Wrap-Up, & Close-Out
• Take this student survey

Here's a preview to our schedule:

• This Week (Week #5):
• review results of actual regional competition
• work time to revise code of winning team
• learn more about space exploration and applications of STEM
• improving bottle rocket design
• Friday, August 15th, from 7:30 am to 12:00 noon
• field trip to NASA Ames for the final competition & group activities & lunch with NASA engineers

Finished Early? Here are some activities and resources to explore:

• Explore Forces and Motion
• Newton's Laws of Motion Interactive
• Circus Physics Video
• Quiz
• "Launch a Frisbee into Orbit" introduces angular velocity, angular acceleration, rotational inertia, and torque
• Amusement Park Physics: Roller Coasters
• Some more math and science fun
• Chasing Down a Satellite talks about how satellites work.
• Order of Operations
• Dimensions and 3-D objects
• Vectors: Dampen that Drift
• Break the code in this challenge from the CIA
• Grids & Cartesian Coordinates
• General Coordinates Game
• Play with some coordinates
• Some math manipulatives
• Astronomy Crossword
• Satellite Insight 
• Advanced Coding!
• Angry Birds Coding Maze Challenge
• Complete various C++ tutorials
• Complete programming C++ challenges
• Try creating a bigger coding project
• Try out other programming skills with Code.org
• Use Scratch to program a moving cartoon!
• There are videos and tutorials to help you make a "holiday card," but you can make whatever you want.
• Get help by clicking on the links on the right side of the page.
• Explore some projects to get some ideas for your own project.
• Want more help? View Scratch tutorial #1 / tutorial #2 / tutorial #3 / how to make a game