Materials required
- Communicating with lights slides
- Otto Starter robot
- Computers with internet and/or Bluetooth connection
Optional materials
- Communicating with lights worksheets
Learning Objectives
- Identify the key components of a robot and explain their functions.
- Recognize robotic systems in everyday life and be able to reason about how they help.
- Know that robots use algorithms to perform tasks.
- Write and upload programs that control the robot.
- Modify an existing program to add new functionality to the robot.
- Understand key concepts of programming (loops, conditionals, variables, and functions) and apply them to write effective programs for the Otto robot.
- Identify the problem to be solved and develop a plan to address it using the Otto robot components.
- Use an iterative design process to improve the robot’s performance.
- Create a project that combines robotics with another creative discipline.
Lights to communicate
The teacher can start the class with a short conversation about how lights can be used to communicate ideas. Questions like “What do you think when you see a red light? And what about a green light? How do people interpret these light colors when driving?” can help to generate conversation about how lights and colors are used to express different things.
In the second slide there is a short explanation about the color lights component of Otto.
Activity: Exploring color lights blocks
Allow students to explore the first three blocks of the Color lights section of the word blocks app on their own.
📝 Students can use the Communicating with lights worksheets for an extra activity, writing down a description of how those blocks work.
ℹ️ Next, you will find a series of challenges for students to solve using Colored lights code blocks.
Intentionally, there is not a defined set of blocks to solve the challenges to encourage students to try different approaches while getting to know the different blocks to display lights available.
💬 What do these lights mean?
On slide 4, the teacher will ask the students: “What do these lights mean?”
The slide will display three examples of lights: (1) a traffic light, (2) emergency lights, and (3) the intermittent light of a car (indicating the intention to move to the left). This exercise encourages students to think about how lights can effectively communicate messages in a visual manner.
Challenge: Intermittent lights
In this challenge students must replicate the behavior of cars’ indicator lights using the color lights component. Students can tackle this challenge with different solutions: take the opportunity to encourage their creativity and analytical thinking in the process.
If students still haven’t used loop blocks such as Forever block or Repeat (n) times block, this is a great time to introduce these blocks to the class.
Possible solution: 8-1_intermittent-lights.otto
In this program, we use half of the color lights component to represent the sides (left and right). Each side blinks 4 times before switching to the other, which also blinks 4 times. This sequence then repeats indefinitely.
Students may explore other solutions by using different colors or creating different effects.
Challenge: Emergency light
In this challenge students must replicate the behavior of an emergency light as the one shown in slides. Since in the GIF it looks like the red light is revolving, a possible approach to tackle this challenge can be by using the cycle effect block with fast speed; but it is possible for students to bring new solutions using other blocks.
Challenge: Traffic lights
In this challenge students must replicate the behavior of traffic lights. Unlike the other two challenges, this one will require to students to consider two things about how traffic lights work:
- The order in which to change the colors
- The time in between changes
💬 On the last slide there are two different approaches to solve this challenge. This is a good opportunity to generate a quick debate about which approach is better.
The most optimal conclusion is that this one is the best option:
8-2_traffic-lights.otto
In this approach, the ring is split into three sections, each representing one of the light-dots in the traffic light. Additionally, since not all the LEDs are turned on simultaneously, this approach consumes less power than the other one. If students cannot reach this conclusion by themselves, the teacher can guide them through questions like: “Do real traffic lights use the same light-dot for all the colors?” or “Why does one of the algorithms do not turn all the lights on simultaneously like the other one?”
Expand Activities
If students already know how to code other components—such as the buzzer, ultrasonic sensor, or motors—feel free to expand these activities by allowing them to incorporate those components into their programs.
Lesson Evaluation
- Students discussed their interpretations of red and green lights and how these are used in traffic signals.
- Students replicated the behavior of car indicator lights using the color lights components.
- Students replicated the behavior of an emergency light as shown in the slides.
- Students replicated the behavior of traffic lights considering the order of color changes and timing.
- Students demonstrated an understanding of how Otto uses lights to communicate.
- Students exhibited creativity and problem-solving skills in completing the challenges.
