By Shannon Morgan at St Francis of Assisi, Northern Territory.

Year 3/4M from St Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary School in Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, investigated push and pull forces in their Science unit in Term 4, 2018. Digital Technologies were utilised to engage the students and to develop their understanding and abilities across both learning areas.

Students engaged with the Lego WeDo robots, creating an algorithm to demonstrate push and pull forces. Further on, students engaged with the “Sphero SPRK+” to investigate friction and the effect that it has on the speed and manoeuvrability of the robot.

Students were required to use the Sphero Edu app to program Sphero SPRK+ to navigate a simple maze, then to move the maze to a different surface. The data collected included a video and a velocity graph from each maze run, uploaded to their digital portfolio on ClassDojo.

A special thanks to Sue Carter at the CSER Lending Library and Simon Collier from the ACARA Digital Technologies team for facilitating the use of Sphero SPRK+ and the introductory lesson to the Sphero Edu.