Name the pieces. Tap sensor, brain, motor, or battery and watch Pip on the same grid. The sensor reads the room, the brain picks a next step, the motor does it, and the battery gives the energy. Play freely, then try eight short which-piece missions.
Bump
No
Light
Dim
Distance
3 cells
This piece
Looks at the room. Bump, light, and distance are what it notices.
Sensor, brain, motor, and battery on the same grid. Tap a piece to see it work.
A robot is not one magic box. It needs a sensor to notice the room, a brain to choose, a motor to move, and a battery for energy. This lab uses those four plain-language words on purpose. You tap a piece and watch the same Pip you already drove in Drive Pip.
The sensor is how the robot notices a wall, a lamp, or empty floor. Bump is yes when a wall is ahead. Light is about the cell underfoot. Distance counts empty cells ahead, from 0 to 3. The amber ring marks the cell the sensor is looking at.
The brain here is tiny on purpose. If bump is yes, pick turn left. If bump is no, pick go forward. That is not a maze solver and not a search algorithm. It is the first idea of think: read, then choose.
Choosing is not the same as moving. The motor is the part that turns or rolls. Tap Make Pip go to watch Pip follow the brain. If the battery is off, Pip looks sleepy and stays still.
Without energy, nothing moves. Tap Battery to give power. Missions that ask for the battery start with Pip unpowered so you can feel the difference.
This is not a kit class, not a wiring diagram, and not a pathfinding lesson. You will not see pack types, motor drivers, or maze search. Those words belong later. The job today is to name the pieces.
Next labs in this group. Everything runs in your browser.
It is a tablet-first naming lab on the same 7 by 7 grid as Drive Pip. You tap four pieces: sensor, brain, motor, and battery. The sensor shows bump, light, and distance. The brain picks turn left if a wall is ahead, or go forward if the path is open. The motor actually moves Pip. The battery gives power so the motor can work. Play lets you tap freely. Missions ask which piece does a job, with eight original challenges. There is no kit, no account, and nothing is uploaded.
It is easy to treat a robot as one blob that just goes. Naming the pieces splits that blob. If the bumper lights up, that is the sensor. If the robot decides to turn, that is the brain. If the body actually turns, that is the motor. If nothing happens, maybe the battery is off. Those four jobs make later coding and kits less scary, because the child already has words for what each piece is for. A paragraph cannot show that. Tapping the same grid robot can.
The sensor is the looking part. Bump is yes when the next cell ahead is a wall or the edge of the room. Light is bright on a lamp, dark on a dark line, and dim on ordinary floor. Distance counts empty cells ahead, from 0 up to 3. When you tap Sensor, an amber ring marks the cell ahead so you can see what it is looking at. The sensor does not move the robot. It only reports what is there.
The brain is the choosing part. It reads the bumper, then picks one next step. If bump is yes, it picks turn left. If bump is no, it picks go forward. That rule is small on purpose so a child can watch it. It is not a map of the whole room, not a shortest path, and not a search through many routes. The brain can choose even when the motor has not moved yet.
The motor is the doing part. It turns or rolls Pip so the body matches what the brain picked. Tap Make Pip go to watch one step. The battery is the energy. If the battery is off, Pip looks sleepy and the motor does nothing useful, even if the brain already picked a step. Missions that ask for the battery start unpowered so you can feel that difference. In Play, tapping Battery turns power on.
Drive Pip is steer class: you steer with Forward, Turn left, and Turn right, watch three sensors, and run a six-step list. Pip's Parts is name class: you tap sensor, brain, motor, and battery on that same robot. You still see bump, light, and distance, but the job is to match a piece to a job, not to reach a star. Both labs stay on a 7 by 7 grid. Think and Act will come later on the Robotics hub.
Four parts is enough for a first hour. Sensor, brain, motor, and battery cover look, choose, do, and energy. Extra hardware words (pack chemistry, motor drivers, pulse control) and extra thinking words (maze search, shortest path) belong later, after the names feel easy. This lab keeps the wording plain so anyone can talk about the robot without a glossary.
Solved Pip's Parts missions are stored locally in this browser under a Justools key, separate from Drive Pip. There is no account and nothing is sent to a server. Clearing site data on the device will reset the checklist. You can also reset progress from the Missions panel.
Runs in your browser. Puzzle progress stays on this device.