It’s finally here — the Mission One Logbook

Wonder League Robotics Competition 2017–18

Are you ready for liftoff? For this year’s Wonder League Robotics Competition, we are releasing three missions (Sept. 18, Oct. 30, Dec. 4), and each mission will be detailed in a kid-facing Mission Logbook. The Mission One Logbook has now landed for teams ages 6–8 and 9–12!

We created two versions of the logbooks: one is in full color, and the others have less color (see pages 5–14).

This year, we envision team members creating authentic portfolios of their hard work throughout this journey — scientific journals! As part of this year’s submission process, we will be looking for “evidence” of individual team member’s planning, design, and reflection process. If you choose to, simply print out the age-specific Mission One Logbook for each of your team members. You may want to hole-punch and keep the packets in individual binders. Alternatively, you could create a master team binder.

If printing is prohibitive, display/share the logbook intro and challenges, and have kids create their scientific journals in notebooks or via online platforms — Google Docs/Slides, Nearpod, Classkick, and more — using some of the provided prompts. Ask them to collect “evidence” (images, drawings, videos) of their thinking throughout their journey.

The packet for the Mission One Logbook includes:

• a binder cover — Slide it into or attach it to a binder cover.
• a preface — This introduction gives kids the context for the three missions in this year’s WLRC.
• a Mission One title page — Think of this page as a divider for the Mission One section.
• 3 challenge pages — Each challenge has step-by-step instructions for your team members. Have your teams tackle these challenges one by one; they get progressively more sophisticated in terms of coding concepts. We are intentionally scaffolding the skill sets in these challenges and missions. Mission One’s three challenges should take about 12 hours in all to complete.
• 4 graphic organizers: “Today’s Plan,” “Planning Grid,” “Designs,” and “Today’s Milestones” — You can make multiple copies of the pages with the pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner. We suggest giving team members a set of these graphic organizers to use for each team meeting. Alternatively, they could document their ideas and reflections in a notebook or online journal.

On Oct. 9, we will be releasing a Solution Guide for you, the coach (gotta let the teams dig in a bit on their own, first!). This year, we will not be judging individual teams’ submissions for these first three missions. Instead, we will be providing possible solutions and judging rubric, and encouraging you to celebrate the team’s accomplishments in your community (see the Celebration Pack).

In order to compete for one of the 1,000 spots in the Invitational Round, however, you will have to submit evidence of your team’s work from all three missions by Feb. 16, 2018. These requirements will be outlined in detail in the Solution Guide, but take a look at the “Time to Log” section for the three challenges, where we outline what we are asking kids to document and share — it alludes to what we’ll ultimately need you to submit. [*Again, more details to come on submitting your team’s work in the Solution Guide.]

Are your teams ready?

Countdown begins: 3, 2, 1 … and we have LIFTOFF!

The Mission One Logbook is found in the Coaches’ Cohorts on Edmodo. You have until Dec. 31 to register teams to compete in this year’s Wonder League Robotics Competition.