Can A Car Drive Itself? An intro to self-driving cars with Sphero's Indi

This four part mini-unit is a great way to introduce students to coding without using a device. The topic of self-driving cars helps engage students in the lessons and they will enjoy tackling the daily challenges. This mini-unit was specifically designed to be used with Sphero's Indi robots and meets many of NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency standards.

The mini-unit starts with an introduction to self-driving cars to help build background knowledge and to get students excited about their learning. The teacher will need this discussion to survey students' prior knowledge. The foundation of the unit is a series of progressively difficult tasks that starts with students figuring out the inputs and outputs of the Indi robot and ends with them debugging codes that other software engineers wrote.

Students do not need any background in coding to complete this. It would work best with students in 5th to 7th grade, but if the language an pacing is simply modified it can range from 2nd to 9th grade. The mini-unit is designed to be 4 days, but can be stretched to 5 or 6 depending on your students, class time, and extensions you would like to add.