Edison is one of the few classroom robots that a Foundation student and a Year 6 student can both use properly. The robot stays the same. What changes is how students tell it what to do: the youngest scan barcodes with no screen at all, middle primary students drag and drop blocks, and upper primary students write text-based Python.
That makes Edison a useful spine for a whole-school coding progression, as long as each stage builds on the one before. Below is one way to sequence Edison lessons from Foundation to Year 6, with an activity for each stage and what students practise along the way. The year levels are our suggestions rather than official guidance, so move them up or down to suit your students.
How Edison's four coding stages fit together
There are four ways to program Edison. All of them are free, with no subscriptions or per-student fees, and the manufacturer publishes free lesson plans, teacher guides and student activity sheets to go with them.
- Barcodes: students drive Edison over a printed barcode and the robot runs a preset program. No device is needed.
- EdBlocks: the simplest drag-and-drop language, built for first-time coders.
- EdScratch: a second drag-and-drop language, built for computer science lessons.
- EdPy: text-based coding in a Python-based language.
Because the robot and its sensors stay the same, students don't lose time learning new hardware each year. They bring what they already know about Edison's lights, sensors and movement to each new language.
Foundation to Year 1: screen-free barcodes
At this stage the goal is cause and effect: I do something, and the robot responds. Barcodes suit it well because there's no device to manage. Students press Edison's round button three times, the robot reads the barcode in front of it, and then it runs that program.
Activity: predict, then test
Before each scan, ask the group what they think Edison will do. Then run it and talk about what happened. Which way did it go? What made it stop? Was it listening, looking or feeling its way? Edison has light sensors, a sound sensor, obstacle detectors and a line tracker built in, so there's plenty to notice.
What students practise: predicting, observing and describing, plus early vocabulary such as forward, backward, turn and sensor.
Years 1–2: first sequences in EdBlocks
Once students can describe what a robot does, they're ready to tell it what to do. EdBlocks keeps the focus on putting steps in order.
Activity: drive the shape
Mark a start point with masking tape and challenge pairs to program Edison to drive a square and finish where it began. Most first attempts won't close the square, which is the point. Students adjust a distance or a turn, test again and keep going until it works.
Loading programs is quick. On computers and Chromebooks, Edison connects by USB cable. On iPads there's no cable: the program loads through a flashing pattern on the screen that Edison reads with its line sensor.
What students practise: sequencing, estimating distance and angle, and testing and debugging.
Years 3–4: loops, decisions and sensors in EdScratch
Now students can make Edison react to the world instead of following a fixed route. This is where loops and if/then decisions start to matter.
Activity: don't hit the wall
Ask students to program Edison to drive forward until its obstacle detectors spot something, then turn and keep going. Set up a box maze on the floor and let the robots explore it on their own. Extend it with the line tracker: draw a thick black loop on white paper and challenge pairs to keep Edison on the line. Test a small loop first before drawing a big course.
What students practise: loops, conditions, inputs and outputs, and planning before coding.
Years 5–6: text-based coding with EdPy
Upper primary students are ready for the jump to typed code. EdPy lets them write real lines of Python-based code for a robot they already know, so the new challenge is the language rather than the hardware.
Activity: rewrite a block program
Give students a working EdScratch program, such as the obstacle avoider, and ask them to rebuild it in EdPy. Comparing the two versions makes the structure of the code visible. Then try a light seeker: use Edison's left and right light sensors to steer the robot towards a torch.
What students practise: syntax and indentation, variables, reading error messages and debugging line by line. For more upper primary ideas, see our Sphero BOLT+ lesson ideas for Years 5–6.
Running Edison lessons smoothly
- Work in pairs. One robot between two students keeps everyone hands-on and gets them talking through their thinking. A class of 30 needs around 15 robots.
- Charge the night before. Edison has a built-in rechargeable battery. The manufacturer rates it at about 90 minutes of continuous driving and 4–5 hours to recharge from flat, so overnight charging covers a full day of lessons.
- Keep fast finishers building. Edison is LEGO-compatible, so students can add bricks to turn it into a plough, a crane or a vehicle of their own design.
- Use the free resources. Each language has free lesson plans and activity sheets on the Edison website, which saves planning time for teachers new to coding.
Where to start
If your school is new to Edison, pick the stage that matches the class you teach this term and build from there. If you're planning across the school, map one activity per year level and let each class pass its skills up to the next.
You can find out more about the edison robot, including classroom packs, or browse the full Edison robot range for activity mats, chargers and building kits. New to classroom robotics in general? Start with our guide to bringing robotics into your primary classroom.