Celebrate International Lego Day with Dash

Build, Code, and Create a Robot Petting Zoo 🧱🤖🐾

It's International LEGO Day, and we’re celebrating with an activity that puts creativity front and center—where students decide what to build, how it looks, and how it behaves.

By combining LEGO® building with Dash and a classroom-tested coding lesson, students can design and program their own robot animals - from elephants and lions to snakes, birds, or creatures they invent themselves.

The result? A Robot Petting Zoo powered by imagination, research, and code.

Build Any Animal You Can Imagine 🐘🦁🦒

To kick things off, students use LEGO® bricks and connectors to give Dash a physical identity.

One popular example is turning Dash into an elephant, complete with a trunk and expressive features. The elephant build is included as a ready-to-use starting point, especially helpful for students who appreciate guided building—or teachers who want a shared example to anchor the lesson.

👉 Download the Elephant Build Instructions

Magic happens when students go beyond the elephant example.

With LEGO® bricks, craft supplies, and creativity, Dash can become:

• A snake that moves in an S-pattern
• A bird that reacts to sound
• A cat that hisses or purrs
• A completely imaginary creature with custom behaviors

There’s no single “right” animal—just thoughtful design choices.

Lesson Plan: Program Dash to Act Like a Real Animal 🐾

Once students have chosen (and built) their animal, they bring it to life using the Robot Petting Zoo lesson.

Designed for grades 3–5, this lesson blends science, computer science, and communication as students:

• Research animal behaviors and traits
• Connect those traits to Dash’s sensors and capabilities
• Program Dash using Blockly to respond to sounds, movement, and button presses
• Present and demonstrate their animal to others

👉Access this Free Lesson Plan in Our Cross-Curricular Lesson Library

Log in is required, but it’s free to register

Elephant Example: From Research to Code 🐘

To help students understand how real-world behaviors translate into programming, the lesson includes an elephant example.

For instance:

• When Dash hears a voice, it can turn side to side and play a rumbling sound to mimic elephant greetings
• When Dash hears a clap, it can trumpet loudly and charge forward
• Button presses can trigger trunk movements or directional cues

Students can follow this example—or use it as inspiration to design something entirely different.

Share Your Robot Zoo with Us! 📸

We’d love to see what animals your students create.

If you build a Robot Petting Zoo for International LEGO Day:

1. Take a photo or short video of your animal Dash robots
2. Share it on social media
3. Tag@WonderWorkshopand use#DashRobotand#InternationalLEGODay

We might reshare your creation!