Duration: 40-45 minutes
SPIRIT Skills:
- Empathy
- Emotional awareness, regulation and communication
- Creativity
Brief Description:
Each group builds a simple robot prototype using recycled or craft materials. The design should visually and functionally represent the emotional responses defined in the previous stage. Students creatively integrate visual elements (like colours, facial expressions, light signals) to show emotions and empathetic reactions. The robot might include features like:
- Interchangeable “faces” showing different emotions
- Coloured “emotional lights” (e.g., blue = calm, red = angry)
- Movable parts for gestures (e.g., arms to give a hug)
- Cardboard buttons or panels labelled with actions
- The robot does not need to be functional — it is a prototype that represents empathic responses.
How does this develop particular SPIRIT skills
- Students embody empathy through creative design
- They think carefully about how to visually represent care, comfort, and emotional support
- They practice perspective-taking, imagining how someone might feel when seeing or interacting with their robot.
What do we want to achieve regarding SPIRIT skill development (student understanding and/or behaviour)?
- Students will be able to represent emotional responses through design choices
- They learn how to express empathy using visual and physical elements
- They will better understand how emotional cues can be communicated non-verbally
- They practice teamwork, negotiation, and listening during construction.
Academic/Curriculum Objective connection
- Basic design thinking and prototyping
- Emotional literacy through physical and visual representation
- Art and creativity integration with SEL.
Materials and tools needed for implementation
- Recycled items (e.g., boxes, tubes, caps, fabrics)
- Scissors, tape, glue, string, paper
- Markers, pens, coloured paper
- (Optional) LEDs, stickers, sound cards, etc.
Preparation notes
- Prepare a “materials table” where each group can collect supplies
- Display examples or inspiration images of simple robot prototypes
- Remind students that the purpose is to express emotions, not to make a high-tech machine.
Guided Questions
- How does your robot show empathy?
- Which part of your design represents how the robot supports someone?
- What colours, shapes, or movements help show how your robot feels?
- How do the robot’s features reflect your IF–THEN plan?
Stage Debriefing Questions (Optional)
- What emotion was the hardest to represent physically?
- Did everyone in the group contribute something to the robot’s design?
Tips and Tricks for dealing with stage challenges
- Some groups might struggle with agreeing on a design — remind them to refer to their IF–THEN plan for guidance
- Offer sentence starters like: “Our robot helps by…” or “We chose this face/light because…”
- Emphasize function over perfection — the robot doesn’t need to “work,” it needs to express empathy.