This month's two lessons and activity provide the opportunity for students to learn about the importance of robotics in aerospace engineering applications. The Red Rover Robotics lesson provides a brief history of robotics technology and the use of robots in space. Next, the Come On Over Rover lesson provides an introduction to the advanced manufacturing techniques required to develop robots for space exploration. During the Edible Rovers activity, students will evaluate the rover equipment options and determine what parts will fit in their given NASA budget. Given a parts list, groups will use these constraints to design for their rover. Lastly, students will build and display their edible rover for a design review.

The lessons and activity are a part of the Mission to Mars curriculur unit in the TeachEngineering Digital Library. The unit contains six lessons and activities designed to teach students about Mars, how aerospace engineers are helping explore it, and how astronauts might one day make a trip to the Red Planet. Designed for grades 6-8, the unit provides activities that may be scaled for high school age students.

This lesson is brought to you by the new Engineering Pathway, a part of the National Science Digital Library. The portal provides high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology - for use by K-12 and university educators. The Engineering Pathway brings together quality engineering education materials from all over the internet allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location. The lesson and activity are from the TeachEngineering Digital Library for K-12 engineering curricula.