05 - LEGO robotics

Day 3 Morning: LEGO Robotics and Teamwork at Banquitas

On Tuesday morning, we returned to the Banquitas House of Culture—not for a cultural experience this time, but to explore coding and robotics with students from three local schools: St. John’s, Muffles High School, and Bishop Martin High School.

Sixteen students and four teachers joined us for the session. After a round of introductions, we divided the students into four teams of four and provided Observation Sheets to the teachers to use in tracking the teams' progress and interactions. Each team received a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime kit. We then began by reviewing the basics of computer science and how the robotics system works.

To encourage collaboration and shared responsibility, we had teams assign roles to team members:

• Driver — focuses on building the LEGO structures
• Coder — writes the programs to control the robot
• Documenter — keeps track of the team’s progress and challenges
• Presenter — prepares to explain the project to the larger group

After a team completed the first challenge, the Driver and Coder switched roles with the Documenter and Presenter so that, after the second challenge, the two team members who had served as Documenters could advise the Presenters on what to present to the full class and how to divide the presentation. The result was a truly collaborative activity, with all team members fully engaged throughout.

For the first challenge, we asked students to follow instructions for building a bike and a a biker from LEGO parts, and then program the bike to climb a hill. This activity introduced ideas of mechanical energy and energy transfer in a hands-on, engaging way. Teams approached the task in different ways—some split into subgroups to tackle building and programming separately, while others chose to work together through each stage. Along the way, they documented their logic, successes, and setbacks.

Once they successfully completed the initial challenge, we asked teams to extend their work by selecting one of the following tasks:

• Signal Response Task — Using the color sensor to make the robot respond autonomously
• Activation Mechanism Task — Programming the robot to activate when a specific condition is satisfied (e.g., the temperature reaches 90°F)
• Obstacle Detection and Response Task — Programming the robot to detect and respond to obstacles

These new challenges gave students a chance to build on what they had learned and apply it in creative ways. With guidance from our team and their teachers, the students worked through difficulties and came up with thoughtful solutions.

At the end of the session, each team presented their project to the group. They explained their design choices, described their code, reflected on the problems they encountered, and shared what they had learned. It was rewarding to see their ideas come together and hear them speak confidently about their work.

This session wasn’t just about robotics—it was about teamwork, experimentation, and problem-solving. Watching the students engage deeply with the material and support one another was a highlight of our time in Belize.