KS1Bee-Bots Tinkering

Exploring using Bee-Bots

Recommended Year Group: Year 1 or 2 (although can be adapted for other years)
Activity Duration: Any spare time e.g. blocks of 10 or 15 minutes

Concepts and approaches

Curriculum links:
Computing:
create simple programs
recognise common uses of information technology beyond school
Design and Technology
when designing and making, pupils should be taught to: Evaluate: explore
and evaluate a range of existing products
Maths
Geometry - position and direction
Year 1: Pupils should be taught to:describe position, direction and
movement, including whole, half, quarter and three-quarter turns
Year 2: Pupils should be taught to: use mathematical vocabulary to
describe position, direction and movement, including movement in a straight line
and distinguishing between rotation as a turn and in terms of right angles for
quarter, half and three quarter turns (clockwise and anti-clockwise)

Introduction
This activity involves your pupils tinkering with Bee-Bots to find out what they do
and how to program them.

Tinkering means trying things out; this is the exploratory phase of learning about
something.

In order to program pupils should understand how a programming language works.

They need to understand what keywords they can use, what they do and in what
order and context they can use those keywords. This is much like learning the
vocabulary and grammar of a spoken language. In this activity you and your pupils
start to understand the very simple programming language the command buttons
used by Bee-Bots.

It is worth allowing time for children to tinker with any new digital device or
software that they have not used before. Tinkering is also a good way to remind
children about software or programming languages they have not used for some
time.

Pupil objectives
I can tinker to find out about Bee-Bots.
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Resources:
flipchart for concept map of things that use computers
Bee-Bots
mats (optional)
command cards (optional - download link at end of page)
fakebots (optional - download link at end of page)
challenge word cards (optional - download link at end of page)
other materials for children to use e.g. long pieces of paper to make tracks,
pens, colouring equipment, paper to make mazes, routes, storyboards,
music for Bee-Bot dancing etc. (optional)

Before you start

If using any of the cards or fake bots you will need to print out
Read the Teaching Notes Computational thinking concepts and
approaches

Introduction Whole Class (5 mins)

Bring children to the carpet and if they have not used Bee-Bots before
explain that you have some new things for pupils to find out about. If pupils
have used Bee-Bots before explain that you have some things that pupils
have used before but they are going to look at them in a new way.
Ask children how we can find out about them.
Explain that people are often making new things in computing, and so
we need to be able to learn how to find out about these new things. Ask
children about new computer based things they have heard of or used.
Make a concept map of these things e.g. new mobile phones, new computer
games, new TVs. Ask children how they or their families found out how these
things work. Ask them what rules there might be about using new things e.g.
not breaking things, asking a grown up if you can use new things etc.
Explain that tinkering is an important skill when learning about computers.
Explain it means having a play with a thing to find out how it works, what it
does, and how you can use it. Talk about how if you find out something for
yourself, rather than being told you might remember it better. Can anyone
think of this happening to them?
Set up a class area where pupils can tinker with Bee-Bots, give them time
in other lessons when they can find out about how Bee-Bots work.

Main Task Tinkering (any spare time)

Before they start briefly discuss what they already know.
Independently or in pairs pupils can explore the devices.
Provide children with fake bots, and allow them to explore and play with
them. Fake bots are a printed bot that pupils can use to rehearse moves. As
pupils are tinkering there is no need to direct their use of this equipment.
Similarly, provide command cards, again allow use in their tinkering. Com-
mand cards are printed programming commands e.g. forward arrow, back-
ward arrow.
Provide pupils with challenge word cards, again allow them to use in their
exploration. Challenge word cards are printed cards that pupils can use to
assemble challenges for each other, e.g. Start here, avoid, pause on.
Please provide other resources to use with Bee-Bots, such as art materials

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to make dens, routes, ramps, music to make Bee-Bots dance to etc, if children ask
for these.
Open ended questions and challenges for the activity include:
What does it do?
How does it do that?
What else does it do?
Can you make it do 3 surprising things?
What can it not do?
What could make it better?

Plenary (5 minutes)
After the class has had opportunity to tinker, this may be after a number of
tinkering sessions over a number of days.
Discuss with pupils any new things they now know about Bee-Bots.
Ask children how they think tinkering might help them learn about something
else.
Ask what surprised them.
Ask what they could do with Bee-Bots.

Differentiation
Support:
Some pupils may ask you what to do, as they are not used to being given
responsibility for driving their own learning, or may be nervous to break the thing
they are tinkering with. Encourage children to have a go, perhaps pairing them with
someone who is more confident and then allowing them to tinker independently.
Stretch & Challenge:
Pupils can be challenged to compare other digital devices or even programming
languages they already know about to the thing they are tinkering with. They can
be challenged to guide others in their exploration. You can give them open ended
challenges e.g. what is impossible with this programming language? How could
it be improved? They could be asked to suggest what it could be used for by
younger or older pupils.

Assessment opportunities
Observe pupils in their exploration. Are pupils confident to tinker
independently or do they wait for instruction? Do they copy others
or try new and novel ways of using the equipment?
Listen to their discussion about tinkering with their peers, do they ask
others questions about how they did things, do they suggest ideas?
Are they open to new ideas and build on others ideas to discover more.
The following questions can be used to help gauge pupils developing
understanding of tinkering and assess progress and encourage tinkering
What does it do? How does it do that? What else does it do?
How does it work?
What surprised you?
Have you tried everything?
What can it not do?
What could we use it for?
What could make it better?
How can we use it in class?

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 Are you more confident to tinker now?
How does tinkering help you to learn?

Teaching Notes

Cross Curricular Opportunities

There are opportunities to link Bee-Bot tinkering in cross-curricular topics. For
example, in a Design and Technology moving vehicle project, pupils might explore
and evaluate a range of moving objects, including Bee-Bots, to build up criteria for
their vehicle design. When tinkering, pupils will start to use vocabulary related to
position and direction and in so doing start to address strands in the Mathematics
Programme of Study related to Geometry.

Alternatives to Bee-Bots
Bee-Bots are not the only programmable toy, alternatives such as BigTrack,
Roamer, Roamer Too and ProBots are widely available as are other similar
products. Any of these would work well for this activity.

Concepts and approaches

Tinkering
Tinkering means trying things out, this is the explorative phase of learning about
something. We often tinker when we encounter something new to find out what it
does and how it works, for example when given a new mobile phone we might try
out all the features of it and then more purposefully work out what is useful for us.
Tinkering should be fun, free, creative and full of questions and surprises. Open
ended themes, questions, playful challenges to engender confidence, encourage
reflection, highlight diverse ideas and build a joyful, risk taking lets have a go
attitude.
Programming
Programming is the act of translating ideas for doing something (algorithms) into
instructions (code) that can be followed by a computer; it is a creative, problem
solving process.
Bee-Bots are digital devices; they are programmable toys; they are simple floor
robots. As pupils press the keys on a Bee-Bot they are writing their program.
The Bee-Bot stores the sequence of commands and executes them when the
GO button is pressed. The Bee-Bot stores the current program being coded. This
program can be executed many times: it is repeatable. Pupils cannot change
commands they have already entered, without clearing the memory and starting
again, but they can add further commands. The Bee-Bot programming language
does not allow for selection (ifthen) or repetition (loops or recursion) therefore
there are many programs that cannot be implemented on a Bee-Bot.
It is very useful if pupils plan (design) the steps that they will use (their algorithm)
before they type it in. They can then check back to this, when things go wrong
(when they are debugging).
When pupils first use Bee-Bots, they typically will type in commands one at a time,
executing and clearing each. Encourage pupils to develop longer, more complex
sequences of instructions according to a plan so that they develop more of a feel
for programming.

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Programming languages
Programming languages enable us to communicate instructions to computers.
Programming languages are made up of keywords and programs are constructed
by joining keywords together.

An explanation of the Bee-Bot programming language

Programs consist of these main commands, which are executed in the order in
which they were input. Pressing X clears the memory and so a new program can
be started. GO will execute the program. Some children find the right and left
arrows that cause a turn confusing, as they base their prediction on the direction
they are facing (and their right and left) rather than the right and left of the Bee-
Bot and where it is facing. This confusion can be further complicated if they are
familiar with xbox type controls, or other onscreen character control keys, where
forward, backwards, left and right is always based on the same orientation of up,
down, left, right on the screen irrespective of the direction that their on screen
character is facing.If pupils walk through a route and think about the direction the
Bee-Bot is facing this can help.

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Digital Devices
A digital device is a device that is controlled by a computer (microprocessor).
They include:
laptop and desktop computers, servers
mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets)
games consoles
recording devices (e.g. talking tins, flip cameras, digital cameras)
programmable toys (such as Bee-Bots, Probots, Roamer, BigTracks)
electronic toys (such as remote control toys, walkie talkies)
controllable hardware (e.g. Wedo, Lego mindstorms)

Taking this further

Pupils can also tinker with online Bee-Bot activities, Bee-Bot apps and other
programming languages such as Logo, Scratch, ScratchJr or Hopscotch

Further reading
There are a wealth of resources to use with Bee-Bots from the TES
If you are using pro bots lessons are available from here
To find out more about LOGO
To find out more about Turtle Graphics

Related activities
KS1 Bee-Bots 1,2, 3 activity
KS1 ScratchJr tinkering activity
KS1 or KS2 Scratch tinkering activity

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