STEM Space Rover Challenge (Great for Pi Day!)

Lesson overview

Space Rover STEM Challenge

This rover STEM challenge is a perfect way to celebrate the Mars Perseverance rover landing, Pi Day on March 14th, or for a space-themed engineering design challenge.

Activity: Students will build a rubber band-powered rover to complete an exciting mission. They will then practice using Pi to analyze their design with imaginative math extension questions.

This hands-on activity is an engaging design challenge that allows students to work in teams, apply the engineering design process, and connect math topics to real-world applications. As a student-driven assignment, the purpose of the teacher is to act as a facilitator. You will provide the structure to the project, but students will take an active role in designing and building their rovers. Our students have loved this activity, and we know yours will too!

As with many STEM activities that are student-driven, this challenge can be tailored to students of various skill levels and abilities.

Included in this product:

• Detailed teachers guide with construction details and pictures, and links to additional resources

• Editable teacher instruction slides and student handouts

• Grading rubric

• Handout about the constant Pi

• Career Connection highlighting various STEM careers and how they use Pi

• Handout discussing kinetic and potential energy as well as the simple machine used in this activity: wheel and axle

• Digital and printed student handouts to guide them through the design process (Google Slides)

• Student recording sheet for each step of the process

• Math connection problems including ratios, geometry using Pi, and graphing

• Answer key

• All applicable pages are in imperial and metric units

Recommended Materials:

Rover Body:

• Cardboard

• Paper plates

• Plastic bottles

• Styrofoam/plastic Cups

Wheels:

• Cardboard

• CDs

• Empty toilet paper rolls

Axles:

• Plastic straws

• Wooden pencils

• Skewers/wooden rods

Pi Rock:

• Hershey’s kisses

• Marshmallows

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Looking for more STEM lessons? Find the Vivify resource guide here: bit.ly/VivifyResourceGuide

About STEM Challenges: Click here to learn more about the 3 Stages of STEM. STEM challenges are an engaging way to incorporate the engineering design process into your classroom or afterschool program! These hands-on activities allow students to work in teams, apply the engineering design process, and connect science topics to real-world applications. The teacher will provide the structure to the project, but students will take an active role in designing and building their own device.

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