Robotic Obstacle Course: Sphero Battlebot Engineering Challenge :: February 21, 2026
Celebrating Black History Month
Dr. Ayanna Howard
Dates: 1966 – Present
The Highlight: Dr. Howard is a world-class roboticist who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She developed SmartNav, the software that helps Mars rovers move autonomously, and SnoMotes—specialized robots designed to explore the freezing, dangerous glaciers of Antarctica. She is a pioneer in “Human-Robot Interaction,” teaching robots how to better assist and learn from people.
Ernest Levert
Dates: 1954 – Present
The Highlight: An aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin, Levert is a pioneer in robotic welding technology. He developed automated systems that used robots and lasers to build high-tech equipment for the International Space Station and NASA’s Space Shuttles. His work proved that robots can do precise, heavy-duty construction that would be impossible for humans to do by hand.
Lonnie Johnson
Dates: 1949 – Present
The Highlight: Though famous for inventing the Super Soaker, Johnson is a brilliant aerospace and robotics engineer. In high school, he built a remote-controlled robot named Linex from junkyard scraps! He spent much of his career at NASA working on the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn, where he designed the power systems that kept those robotic explorers running in deep space.
Dr. Gladys West
Dates: 1930 – 2026
The Highlight: A mathematician and engineer whose work is inside almost every robot today. She did the complex math and programming that created the foundation for GPS (Global Positioning System). When you program a Sphero to move to a specific coordinate or follow a path, you are using the technology that Dr. West helped invent.
Download the Sphero EDU App
You’ll only need one app today:
👉 https://edu.sphero.com/downloads
Make sure Bluetooth is ON
Connect your device to your team’s Sphero
Drive & Test
Open the Sphero EDU app
Tap the Drive tab
Use the joystick and speed controls to practice:
Balloon Pop Battle – Drive & Design
This challenge is engineering.
Build Instructions:
Place your Sphero inside a clear plastic cup
Tape a balloon to the back of the cup
Tape a popping tool (like a skewer) to the front
Test how it drives with your setup and adjust as needed
Battle Instructions:
Use the Drive tab for remote control
Pop other teams’ balloons
Protect your own balloon!
🏆 Victory: Last balloon standing or the most pops within the match time.
Final Reflection
At the end of the session, we’ll discuss:
What made a design successful?
How did testing improve your performance?
How does this type of design thinking show up in real-world engineering and robotics?