Virtual Sojourner
Student Activity #1: Driving Blind
Teachers' Resources

Suggested Procedure

1. Read the Introduction and the responsibilities of each team (job descriptions).

2. Raise students' awareness of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Some options are:

• Have them visit the JPL Pathfinder Web site.
• Show the Pathfinder video.
• Show news clippings from the mission and discuss details, problems, etc.
• Have students construct posters of what they know about the planet and the Pathfinder mission.

3. Prepare a "test rock-field" hidden from students' view and make a video tape without panning the camera. The rocks should be of varying sizes and spread about the picture.

4. Have the entire class, working in pairs, create scale maps of the test rock-field using "circular" graph paper or larger-scale paper they prepare themselves. Facilitate a discussion mid-way through the maps so students can share their insights and methods.

5. Select a location for the "lander" that can be kept secret during the mission and is close enough for kids to get to easily. A rooftop worked very well for field testing of this module (the pebbled roofing appeared like sand on the video!).

6. Select team members. Limit the Mission Operations, Lander, and Publication teams to two, the others can use three members. For large classes, split the class into two mission groups. If you need to merge groups for smaller classes (or sub classes) put Camera with Mapping and Engineering with Navigation.

7. Give team members name tags. You can print a sheet of name tags for the mission or download a text version of the nametags to manipulate in your word processor.

8. Work with each team to ensure they understand their jobs. A few cautions:

• Girls typically get shut out of many of the more "technical" aspects of this activity--driving the R/C car, constructing devices, developing experiments, etc. Make sure they get plenty of opportunities to expand their experiences, employ their creativity, and use their intellect.
• The materials (camera, rover, etc.) must be shared making it difficult for teams to complete their jobs. Facilitate careful scheduling and cross-team communication to decrease this problem.
• The Mapping team has the most technically difficult job--constructing a scale map from the TV screen. Ease their job by helping them make a sample map within the classroom using the camera and rocks. Use circular graph paper and locate the camera at the center. Measure to a rock only when the camera points directly at it and note the "heading" (how many degrees of rotation from a fixed reference point).
• Monitor the Engineering and Navigation teams closely--they might be more interested in merely driving the "rover" around than addressing their jobs.

9. Have the Lander team set up the secret rock field (the lander site) ASAP so that a video can be delivered to the other teams to aid their planning. Make sure an object of known size is in the picture for scale and orientation purposes.

10. Help the class choose a destination rock for their "mission." Set a date for the class to run a mission and try to get them to stick to it by posting a daily count down.

11. Allow the class to run their mission when rover calibrations are done, when the experiments are installed on the rover, after a route is plotted on the map, and when the class agrees on the commands to be sent to the Lander team.

12. Facilitate transmission of instructions to the Lander team on Mission Day. Show the "downlinked" video to the whole class and let them determine if was successful. Allow for additional instruction sets to be sent to the Lander team to get the rover closer to its destination or to extend the mission (go to another rock).

13. Organize the presentation of final reports for each team--about one minute each. They discuss the poster they constructed at the end of the mission and their part in the mission.

14. Organize consensus-building for the mission final report and have it submitted.