This week in STEM, the 2/3 class used the engineering design process to design and build a robot or rover that could explore the planet that their group is studying.  In order to build their robot, they had to research what a spacecraft might need to explore their planet, taking into consideration factors such as the temperature on that planet, and the composition of the planets’ surface and atmosphere. They used LEGO WeDo sets to build and program their robots, making robots that hover through planets that are gas giants, or rovers to move over the solid core of some planets. In the process, they learned the basics of block based coding in order to program their robots. They also practiced collaboration and communication as they shared their robots with the class in the middle of the process, in order to get feedback, suggestions, and of course compliments on their creativity and design! In the next few weeks they will be making videos about why we should explore their chosen planet next, and why their robot would be a good choice for that exploration!