Team game · science and engineering
Mission to Mars — design a rover and lead the research
Become a science and engineering team. Choose your research goals, design a rover within its budget, mass and power limits, then run mission rounds. Work on the same PDF pages and discuss what your measurements really show.
Play online together on the whiteboard, or offline on paper. The PDF materials are ready to print.
✓ No account needed · ✓ No installation · ✓ Share a link
| Team | 3–5 people |
|---|---|
| Age | >15 years |
| Duration | 60–70 minutes; 90–115 minutes with all extensions. Videos and breaks are extra. |
| Materials | 46-page PDF · shared whiteboard or printout |
| Topics | Science, engineering, calculations, data analysis and teamwork |
Preview photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS — Perseverance self-portrait.
How to start the mission together
Open the lesson
The button creates a whiteboard with the game instructions and links to materials. Open the linked PDF pages on the whiteboard to write, draw and record your decisions.
Invite your team
Share the whiteboard link with the other team members. Everyone works on the same pages and sees changes in real time.
Run the mission
Follow the game instructions, choose two goals and design your rover. Record your actions and results during the rounds, then explain your conclusions.
Your team is ready for launch.
Open the lesson, share the link and make your first research decisions together.
What will your mission investigate?
Choose two of the four research goals. Your choice determines which instruments you need and how you plan the rover's work.
- A · Traces of ancient life — Compare rock observations and measurements, choose a sample for further study, and distinguish evidence from a hypothesis.
- B · Traces of ancient water — Use measurements to investigate the history of rocks and sediment layers.
- C · Weather changes — Compare measurements from successive rounds and describe changes in conditions.
- D · Local resources on Mars — Assess what the collected data can tell you about resources for future missions.
Practise making decisions within a budget, mass and power limit. Adapt your plan to new data and finish with a conclusion, an unanswered question and a proposal for further research.
Lesson PDF and teacher materials
The PDF contains instructions, research goal cards, rover design sheets, round sheets and measurement results. The lesson can also be run entirely on paper.
For paper lessons, print single-sided on A4 in landscape orientation, one PDF page per sheet.
Materials for the teacher are on pages 43–46, after the end of the game. Reveal only the selected measurement results, after all actions in the round have been recorded.
Questions about the lesson
Does everyone need an account?
No. Open the lesson and share the whiteboard link. Team members can join in their browsers without creating an account or installing an app.
Can we work remotely?
Yes. Share one whiteboard link so the team can write on the same PDF pages. Discuss decisions and record your plan and results together.