Jose Nieves teaches robotics to elementary school students in San Bernardino, California. His students build a SeaPerch underwater robot. In doing so, Nieves leads his students through the steps of the engineering design process – ask, imagine, plan, create, improve. Nieves emphasizes the imagine step. “I really want the kids to think about, ‘Hey, what if I did this, what would be the outcome?” That process is also reinforcing ISTE Innovative Designer Standard 4b: “Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.” One of the “design constraints” that students encountered was that robots can’t tolerate water seeping into the control box so they had to research how to waterproof their robot and try again, thereby taking a calculated risk.
