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The
Mission:
NASA has launched its Mars
Exploration Rover Mission
and landed Spirit, the first of two robotic
rovers on the surface of Mars. The rovers will explore several kilometers of the
alien planet's rocky terrain recording images and analyzing a
variety sensor data. In anticipation of this historical event,
the development team at Applied Technologies participated in the
development of an exciting educational simulation called the Mars
Rover Project.
The Project:
*Through the nine week hands-on project students build an autonomous programmable robot,
explore a scale
model of a Martian landscape that they design and build, then send
their rover to another location to explore alien Marscape remotely. For more
details on the activities performed in the project,
click
here.
Developed by
Teachers:
In the summer of
2002 dozens of teachers from across the country attended a series of
meetings and workshops sponsored by NASA, the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory,
the
Los Angeles Unified School District, and the National
Science Foundation. The goal of these meetings was to
refine a nine week (45 hour) unit of study that would be academically rigorous in math
and science while also being engaging and fun for students.
Steven Dworetzky, author of the Mars Rover Project curriculum
support materials and, Ken Berry of Cal State University hosted the workshops. If
you'd like to learn more about the curriculum,
click
here.
To see the workshop participants knee deep in projects, visit the
Imagiverse Web Site.
*The Lesson
Plans and Standards Correlations will soon be available online for
free! Check back soon! |
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The Rover:
If you are
interested in participating in the Mars Rover Project, you'll
need a rover kit. The kit we offer is unsurpassed in
flexibility and ease of use. With this kit, your
students can build a robot with more capabilities than any
other available unit.
In addition to the Mars Rover, we include instructions for
building many other computerized models. To learn more,
click here. |
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The Mars Exploration Rover kit (MERk) includes over 1500
K'Nex building pieces, a controller, servos, sensors, a
wireless camera, software, and manuals.
For more detailed specifications, click
here.
To purchase the kit, click
here.
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Workshops:
In the coming
months, a series of workshops will be planned for teachers
interested in participating in the Mars Rover Project. To find
out about workshops being held in your area, click
here.
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Workshop pictures courtesy of Imagiverse
click pictures to enlarge
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