Grades 4 and 5 - First Lego League Robotics Team

For the last two weeks, our First Lego League robotics team has been working to build all the models that will be used for the different missions on the game board.  Building them is always fun and the students have been enthusiastic about working on them during snack and recess times, as well as ASP time.  Next week, we will begin the hard work of designing the basic frame of our robot, deciding which missions to try and complete first or together with others, begin building tools and attachments to help complete them, and start programming!  

For the project, we will look at what life is like for astronauts in space.  We will have to determine a problem that humans have staying in space for a long duration of time, such as the three years needed to get to Mars, and try and find a solution.  One astronaut who has been influential in spreading publicity about the impact that staying in space has on the human body is Scott Kelly, who spent 340 consecutive days in the International Space Station.  There is a Time Magazine produced documentary about his time spent there which we will be watching some of to help us begin our thinking about what the life of an astronaut is like and try and determine what problems may be.  You can find it here http://time.com/space-nasa-scott-kelly-mission/