Lesson: 5 -Real life programming game - 2

Purpose : To teach relative orientation and procedural operations.

Materials Required

Ground or open classroom, Pen, paper

Curriculum Content 4.1) Procedural operations in 5*5 grid with real people.4.2) Directions and orientation. 5.2) Sequence of operations.
Prior knowledge

Students should know about directions (left hand, right hand, backward, and forward).

Exercises

Real life programming exercise:Instruction

This activity involves a Treasure, a Programmer and a Robot. The Treasure is placed in one box (cell). The Robot has to navigate to the position of the Treasure and pick up the treasure and again navigate to the position of the Programmer and hand over the treasure to the Programmer. Robots are not allowed to go out of the grid. Programmer will guide the Robot only using the following commands:

  • Move Forward.
  • Turn Left (by 90 degrees)
  • Turn Right (by 90 degrees)
  • Pickup treasure
  • Give treasure.

    • They can also use symbols such as,

    Note: Please note that bombs can be placed in some boxes, on which navigation is not possible. This means that the Robot cannot step inside those boxes.


    This should ideally be done in an open ground where you draw using a stick or a classroom where you can draw the grid using chalk. What is given below are some sample grids. You can use your own grids. Depending on the space

    Exercise:1


    1. How will the robot move and find the treasure then return to give the treasure to the person?


    *

    Exercise:2


    1. How will the robot move and find the treasure then return to give the treasure to the person?

    Solutions


  • Click here to view the solutions for Exercise 1 & 2. (Solution).

    • Teacher's Instruction
    1. After having conducted a physical activity in a previous lesson plan, the teacher can now use a notebook and a pen in this lesson plan and give similar exercise activities to the Students.
    2. Simple grids with 3 x 3 boxes can be used initially and gradually the number of boxes can be increased (eg. 4x4 etc.), so that the Students can understand better and navigate easily.
    3. Teachers should relate this to programming. How this is similar to instructing a computer to do things. Programming is breaking down a task into a series of simple steps.
    4. Precision in communication is something that the teacher should insist on. Relate to how programming requires very structured and precise instructions to a computer using a simplified language.