Mission to Mars: LEGO® Explorers Workshop

Event information

Event type: Workshop

Location: Investigate Centre (Green Zone lower Ground Floor)

Suitable for: key stage 2 (ages 7-11), key stage 3 (ages 11-14)

Capacity: 35 students

Duration: 1hr 45 min

Ticket prices:

£3 per pupil
Booking required

Pupils will design, create and code a Martian rover using LEGO® Education WeDo 2.0 robotics sets in this hands-on workshop.

Exploring and understanding Mars has become one of the key challenges in space exploration. From remote sensing to landing rovers, our Museum scientists are actively involved in learning more about the red planet. But how do we study a planet that is millions of miles away?

In this workshop, pupils work in small teams to design and build a LEGO Martian rover. They then code, test and evaluate their designs.before seeing how their rovers perform on a realistic Martian surface.

This workshop has been created in partnership with the LEGO Group and LEGO Education Partner, Raising Robots

Workshop rundown

Pupils discover the importance of space exploration, how our Museum scientists are actively involved and why using models such as LEGO is important for engineers.
Pupils follow a basic prototype to build a rover, which they will then learn to code using LEGO WeDo 2.0 robotic sets.
Pupils decide on the aims for their rover and build, to a given specification, appropriate tools for their challenge.
In an exciting finale, pupils see how their rovers perform on a large-scale realistic Martian surface.
KS3 classes will also receive an additional challenge to consider the budget and weight of their rover and designs.

Further information

Curriculum links: Working scientifically, Earth and space, Forces, Deisgn, Evaluate, Technical knowledge, Computing

Support notes PDF (280 KB)

Information for Home Educator groups
We welcome home educator groups booking onto this workshop. However, please note:

Our workshops require a minimum booking number of 10 children per session.

There is a strict minimum age of 7, for all participants, and we cannot permit accompanying younger siblings into the workshop space. This is due to hazards associated with small parts.

Students participating in the workshop must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

For more information on planning a home education group visit, please see here.