⬡ FACILITATOR’S GUIDE · SW6 ⬡
Facilitator’s Guide: SPIKE PRIME Overview
Everything you need to run Invention Squad week.
📅 5 days + an optional extension🛠️ LEGO SPIKE Prime kits📦 Teams of 2–3
The unit at a glance
| Module item | What happens | ~Time |
|---|---|---|
| Invention Squad — Engineering Design Week: define the problem, prototype, then test | ||
| Day 1: Help! (Find the Problem) | Teams build Kiki the dog, run two programs and listen, then brainstorm for sixty seconds, trade lists with another team, and write a real problem statement plus 2–3 success criteria. | ~45 min |
| Days 2–3: Hopper Race | Build a baseline hopper, time it over 50 cm, change one leg, time it again, iterate to the fastest build. Three prototypes recorded in the Prototype Log. No wheels. | 2 periods |
| Days 4–5: Super Cleanup (Test Like an Engineer) | Build the hand controller and two grabbers, write success criteria before testing, run two fair tests with three tries per object, then read the data and make a recommendation. | 2 periods |
| Extension: Design for You (Desktop Helper) | Optional. Students fix the most annoying thing on their own desk with no build instructions. Photo of the prototype in use plus two sentences. Starts only once Super Cleanup is turned in. | ~45 min |
| Closing | ||
| Xello Check-in: Transition to High School Lesson | Confirm 5 saved interests, complete the Transition to high school lesson, upload the completion screenshot. Runs last. Xello assigns this lesson to 8th grade only. | ~30 min |
Materials + prep
- Charge every SPIKE Prime hub before the week starts, not the morning of Day 1. A dead hub costs a team the whole period.
- Inventory the kits. Day 1 needs the Color Sensor for Kiki; Days 4–5 need enough parts for a hand controller plus two different grabbers per team at the same time. A missing sensor is invisible until a team is halfway into the build.
- The SPIKE App installed on at least one device per team for Days 1, 4 and 5, and the LEGO SPIKE website reachable for the Hopper Race build.
- A 50 cm track marked on a table or the floor, and a timer per team, for Days 2–3.
- Test objects for Super Cleanup that differ on purpose: a crumpled paper ball, an empty plastic bottle, an apple or something about that heavy, and one small object like a marker.
- The Prototype Log worksheet for Hopper Race opens in Google Docs — open it yourself once and confirm it hands back.
- Xello through ClassLink for the check-in. Day 1, Days 4–5, the Extension and the check-in all arrive unpublished; publish them as you reach them.
Watch-fors
- Teams of 2–3, and make them split the job. Every one of these lessons says it: one person hunts parts while one builds, then trade. Left alone, one student builds for the whole week and the other two watch.
- The Extension is a stretch, not a requirement. It is a bonus build for teams who finish Super Cleanup and turn it in. Do not plan the week around it, and do not hold the class for it.
- Criteria before testing, every time. Days 1, 4 and 5 all hinge on students writing down what counts as success before they start. If they test first and decide after, they will simply crown whichever design they already liked.
- Change one thing at a time. Hopper Race falls apart if a team changes three things between runs, because then no time means anything. Say it on Day 2 and say it again on Day 3.
Grading
Days 2–3: Hopper Race is the unit’s Major grade, at 100 points, and the Prototype Log that comes back through Google Docs is what you score. Day 1, Days 4–5 and the Extension are Minor grades worth 5 points each, submitted as a file upload or media recording, and the Xello Check-in is another Minor 5. Required work comes to 115 points, plus 5 more if a team does the Extension.