Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v4 - SHS 2

Lesson Video

This page supports the lesson note with a companion video and a short classroom-ready summary.

For class groups and homework, share this lesson page so learners also get the summary, objectives, and full lesson context.

Performance objectives

• Identify a robot's intended task and its actual performance.
• Distinguish between algorithmic and programming errors.
• Use an iterative process to troubleshoot and fix robot errors.
• Test the robot to ensure it functions correctly after fixing.

Lesson summary

Welcome, learners! In our last lessons, we learned how to write basic programs to make a robot move and interact with its environment. But what happens when things go wrong? Just like a mechanic fixing a "trotro" that won't start, or a seamstress adjusting a dress that doesn't fit properly, programmers and roboticists must become expert problem-solvers. A robot that doesn't perform its task correctly is just a collection of expensive parts. Today, we are going to become "robot detectives." We will learn a systematic process called debugging to find and fix errors in a robot's program. This skill is incredibly important, not just in robotics but in any field that involves problem-solving.

Lesson notes

This lesson focuses on one of the most critical skills in programming: Debugging. A. What is Debugging?

Debugging is the process of finding and fixing errors, or "bugs," in a computer program or a robotic system. It is a systematic process of elimination and testing, much like how a doctor diagnoses an illness. You observe the symptoms (what the robot is doing wrong), form a hypothesis about the cause (what part of the code is the problem), apply a treatment (fix the code), and then observe again to see if the treatment worked. B. The Iterative Debugging Cycle

The indicator mentions using a "series of iterations." Iteration simply means repeating a process to get closer to a desired result. We don't expect to fix complex problems on the first try. We fix one thing, test it, see what happens, and repeat. This cycle is the core of our lesson.

We will use a Four-Step Iterative Cycle, based on the NaCCA exemplars:

Evaluation guide

• Use a series of iterations to fix the identified flaws or improve the performance
• of solutions.
• Project-Based Learning:
• For a given non-functional robot designed and programmed to perform a known task,