dcf.cymru stimulus sheet · Science and Technology · Year 3
Ysgol Glan Ffrwd, its toy rover and this map are invented for practice. The facts in section 3 are real.
Each square is 1 move for the rover. The rover starts at the base, facing up.
| Card | Letter | What the rover does |
|---|---|---|
| F | Forward: move 1 square the way it is facing. | |
| R | Turn right: a quarter turn clockwise. The rover stays on the same square. | |
| L | Turn left: a quarter turn anticlockwise. The rover stays on the same square. |
You can point at these cards, or cut them out and lay them in a line to build a program.
F | F | F | F | F | F |
R | R | R | L | L | L |
| Repeat ____ times: | Repeat ____ times: | ||||
Mars is so far away that a radio message from Earth takes between about 3 and 22 minutes to get there. Drivers on Earth cannot steer a rover like a remote-control car. Instead, they send it a list of instructions, a program, and the rover follows it.
Rovers must keep away from soft sand. In 2009 a rover called Spirit got stuck in soft ground on Mars and never drove again.
Rovers collect and study rocks. Rocks with layers can show scientists that water once flowed or lay still there, long ago.