Failing Forward for Success

Year 4 have been using their Digital Innovation lessons to put a practical slant on their Global Citizenship theme for the term, planning disaster rescue missions for their Sphero Mini robots. Given the challenge of coding a robot to conduct rescue missions in areas affected by a catastrophe, the children have worked in teams to map, measure, plot and plan their rescue operations. They used their understanding of measure and angles to take notes and plan out their code for the robots, which would need to complete their mission autonomously once put into action. Embracing a ‘fail forward’ growth mindset, each group learned to take each setback with good humour and as an opportunity to refine their code in order to find a better solution until they were able to complete their missions successfully.

The same sorts of challenges are taken on by NASA and ESA scientists programming rovers on Mars and by humanitarian forces using robots to help rescue trapped civilians in parts of Ukraine. Fortunately, the stakes are a little lower in the Prep Innovation Centre, but the skills of planning, communicating and problem-solving are invaluable nonetheless.