🃏 Unplugged Activity · Module A
Sorting Card Game
Teach the robot — without a screen!
📦 What You Need
✂️ Scissors · 🖨️ Pages 2 & 3 printed · 🃏 A flat surface · 👥 2 players (child + grown-up or two children)
🤖 The Story
Kai the robot needs to learn a secret sorting rule — but Kai can only learn from examples!
One player knows the secret rule and sorts animals into YES and NO piles.
The other player (playing as Kai!) must guess the rule just by looking at the sorted animals.
That's exactly how real AI works.
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1
Print and cut out the 12 Animal Cards (Page 2) and 3 Secret Rule Cards (Page 3).
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2
Player 1 picks one Secret Rule Card and reads it privately — keep it secret from Player 2!
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3
Player 1 sorts 4–6 animals into the YES circle and the NO circle, following their secret rule.
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4
Player 2 studies the sorted animals. They can ask: "Does [animal] go in YES?" — Player 1 answers Yes or No. Try to figure out the rule!
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5
Player 2 says the rule out loud. Reveal the card — did they get it? 🎉 Swap roles and try a new rule!
💡 The Big Idea
AI learns from examples, not from being told rules directly. The more examples it sees, the better it gets at guessing the pattern. That is called machine learning — and you just did it!
✂️ Cut out each card along the dashed border
🤔 The Tricky Ones!
Duck can fly AND swim. Frog lives on land AND in water. What happens when an animal could go in EITHER pile?
This is called an edge case — it is the hardest thing for AI to get right, too!
🃏 Secret Rule Cards — pick one and keep it secret!
✂️ Cut out the three rule cards below. The rule-keeper holds one face down.
🌍
Secret Rule 1
Lives
on land
🐾
Secret Rule 2
Has
4 legs
🗂️ Sorting Mats — place animal cards inside the circles
🎮 Bonus Round!
After playing all 3 rules, try making up your OWN secret rule — for example: "Has a tail", "Can be a pet", "Is bigger than a dog".
Just make sure you can sort ALL 12 cards consistently with your rule!