Day 4: Test and Improve an Inspection System

Daily Learning Contract

• Topic: Systems Iteration
• Objective: Students will identify career opportunities and explain transferable skills by using three controlled trials to revise one system variable and connect the skill to two occupations.
• TEKS: d(1)(C), d(4)(B)
• Demonstration of Learning: Team three-trial systems log plus an individual evidence-based iteration and two-occupation skill-transfer response.

Lesson Overview

Before Class

1. Confirm the same Day 3 safety gate. If any live-flight condition is missing, use simulator or tabletop without reducing the evidence.
2. Default paper route: teams of four receive one copy of pp. 1-2; each student receives p. 3 or uses the private Canvas text/upload response. Do not assign every student an annotation copy of the team pages.
3. Set one tabletop zone per team: one paper aircraft token, one boundary/route sheet, one target card, and one timer visible to the class. A teacher-cleared live aircraft or simulator may replace one tabletop zone; teams do not wait in a long equipment rotation.
4. Post the four-step communication card: goal, action, result, stop/revise.
5. Project the supplied completed model trial in the Student Guide. It shows that faster time is not automatically better evidence and supplies the absence/recovery data.

Warm-Up: What Counts as Improvement? (5 min)

Students compare:

• Run A is faster but misses the target image.
• Run B is slower, stays within the boundary, and captures the required target.

They identify the success criterion that matters and explain why speed alone does not prove improvement.

Activity 1: Set the Test and Roles (8 min)

Fictional mission: inspect a marked equipment panel and return one usable observation without touching the target or crossing the boundary.

Equal routes:

• Live indoor microdrone: teacher-cleared low-altitude operation under the exact SOP;
• Simulator: virtual path and target; or
• Tabletop: paper aircraft token moved along a scaled path while a sightline/observation card is completed.

Roles rotate across three team trials: operator/mover, spotter/boundary checker, evidence logger, and communication checker. No grade depends on piloting.

Activity 2: Run Three Team Trials (24 min)

Each eight-minute trial uses:

• 2 minutes: state goal and success criterion;
• 2 minutes: run the test;
• 2 minutes: record result and breakdown; and
• 2 minutes: revise one variable and prepare the next trial.

The team may revise only one main variable at a time: route, speed, starting position, communication wording, role timing, target distance, or observation method. This makes the evidence interpretable.

If live hardware fails, the team continues immediately with the same scenario in the simulator or tabletop route and labels the route change in the log.

Activity 3: Individual Iteration and Transfer (8 min)

Students write in separate full-width areas:

1. the changed variable;
2. evidence that performance improved, declined, or stayed mixed;
3. the next test they would run; and
4. how precision, communication, data interpretation, or iteration transfers to two occupations from Day 2.

Exit Check (5 min)

Students use the individual page rather than another handout:

A team can either make another fast run or pause to check why the target evidence is blurry.

1. State one advantage of each choice.
2. Choose the next action and cite one result from the run log.
3. Name one transferable skill the decision uses and a second occupation that uses it.

(d(1)(C), d(4)(B))

Teacher Key and Monitoring

• A strong revision changes one variable and uses the next result to judge its effect.
• Usable evidence and boundary control outrank time.
• Mixed results are valid when the student explains the tradeoff.
• Transfer earns d(4)(B) only when the response connects the skill to at least two occupations or career contexts.
• Stop live operation immediately for people entering the zone, unsafe battery/equipment condition, lost control/connection, or failure to follow the model-specific stop procedure.
• Checkpoint, minute 13: every team has four roles, a route, and one success criterion. If not, assign roles and begin with the supplied model rather than losing test time.
• Checkpoint, minute 29: two trials and two one-variable revisions are recorded. If fewer than three teams are ready, stop all routes and complete Trial 3 as a written prediction using the same evidence fields.
• Checkpoint, minute 42: every student has started the individual response. Prompt for a trial number and observable result before accepting “it worked.”
• Safe trim: use the supplied third model trial or a written third trial; never remove the individual iteration, tradeoff, or two-occupation transfer.
• Cleanup/collection: one team packet is collected once. Each student submits p. 3 by private text/upload or turns in the paper page. Return tokens and cards to the team envelope; the teacher powers down and stores live hardware.

Supports and Equal Routes

• Use role cards with text and icons; no color-only distinctions.
• A non-speaking role and private written/text/media response are equal.
• Reduce the physical path, not the reasoning jobs.
• An absent student uses the complete tabletop scenario and model run data.
• No timed competition, payload drop, blindfolded coaching, outdoor flight, or extra attempts tied to a grade.