One volunteer becomes the robot. The robot is a fine machine with one firm rule: it does exactly what it is told, and nothing it is not. The rest of the class must steer it through a small task — walk to the door, pick up a marker, draw a square on the board — one instruction at a time. This is the daily-sized cousin of The Sandwich Robot, and it is the unplugged heart of precision: every idea in Computational Thinking starts here.
How to run it
- Pick a robot and a task the robot can see the end of.
- Instructions come one at a time, from one person at a time.
- The robot obeys the words, not the intent. “Go to the door” with no direction given means the robot does not move — which way?
- If an instruction is ambiguous, the robot picks the most literal — and least helpful — reading available.
- Task done? Ask the room: which instruction did the hardest work?
One variation
Blind robot: the robot closes its eyes, and “turn” or “step” must now carry numbers — degrees and steps. Watch how fast the instructions start sounding like code.
The robot is never wrong
When the robot does something absurd, the bug is always in the instruction, never in the robot. “You know what I meant” is the one move this game exists to take away from you.
Curriculum connection
C1.2
describe simple algorithms that are encountered in everyday situations
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A1.1
apply computational thinking concepts and practices when planning and designing computational artifacts
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