🛻 🌽🌽 ➡️ 🎯 📸

The jerry-can rover carrying a small load of maize cobs across a chalk line, with a hand holding a phone taking the picture.

🎒 What you need

your rover from module 7
a load to carry: maize cobs, stones, a small tin of water
chalk or a stick to mark a course, and the shared phone for one photo

✋ Do this

Mark a start line and a finish line about five big steps apart. Mark them properly — a real test needs a real course.
Run 1: empty rover. Time it and write the time on the jerry can.
Now load it. Add weight until it stops moving, then take one item off. That is your rover's maximum load — find the real number, do not guess.
Improve ONE thing: bigger wheels, motor mounted tighter, load moved forward. Change one thing only, or you will never know what helped.
Run the loaded course three times. Write all three times down, including the bad one. Three honest numbers beat one lucky number.
Take one photograph: rover, load, course and you. Then explain to somebody, in under a minute, what each part does and what you would fix next.

💡 Why it works

You just ran a proper engineering test: a fixed course, a baseline measurement, one change at a time, and repeated runs. That method is the same whether you are testing a cardboard rover or a machine that hauls sacks in a warehouse. And your list of what you would fix next is the most valuable thing you made today.

🔥 Challenge

Race a friend's rover — but score it on load carried, not speed. The slow strong one usually wins, and that surprises everyone.

📖 New words

payloadthe load a machine is built to carry

testa fair try, repeated, with the numbers written down

🎖️

Rover Captain

Tap when you have finished this module.