One of the favorites is for the students to try driving the Sphero Spark+ and Ollie. WOW, these little robots can move....up to 14 MPH! I have a few ramps the students like to try and get the robots to jump. Once the students have an idea about how these robots move and how to control them the next step is to introduce them to the programming and coding end. These Sphero products are great! They work with iPads, Chromebooks, and Android devices. Students can use the block programming commands to change their color, speed, direction, and make it do tricks. If I had a dozen of these little guys they would all be in use!
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After Winter Break, I wanted to give the students some new ideas and things to think about creating in club. I introduced 3D design and printing, a cardboard challenge, and coding of robots. The cardboard challenge began quite strong with the majority of the students wanting to "play" with cardboard. I gave a few suggested ideas to create a maze or obstacle course for our robots or create a game. I noticed the the students who thought out their ideas seemed to stick with the project and work on it multiple days. The students who just wanted to make a.....xyz seemed to give up and never produce a final product. I do have a few great cardboard creations the Makers worked on. From a robot with a light up head, to a skeet ball game, and even a little homestead landscape. Cardboard is free and cheap. I think if I had less other options in club to try out more students would have had the focus to stick it through and create a final product.
To wrap up 2016 I brought out the toys. I had finally gotten in some more techie devices and was excited to introduce them to the students and let them…..play. The newest additions to our Makers Club now include: snap circuits, Makey Makeys, Squishy Circuits, a programmable rover (I call him Wall-e), Eve-3 Lego robotics, Dash & Dot, Spark+ and Ollie, Goldieblox, littleBits, and a 3D Lutzbot mini printer. Wow, that’s a lot of toys I myself have had to test out. The students were hooked on this Makers Club! Letting the students explore the new devices, test out what they can do, and troubleshoot on their own is great to see. The teamwork of boys, girls, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders is fantastic. Everyone seems to help out each other. I can’t wait to see what the students can do when we get back from winter break. I have a few new challenges to pose to them. So, for our December meetings I thought it would be fun to make light up holiday and winter cards or pictures. Everything I read online looked easy enough. I researched a little more and practiced with a few designs. I created a little light up tree and even found a great template from Sprkfun that would allow the students to make a 3D house that would light up. I found it was a little tricky to work with the copper tape. It was pretty thin and would bend and crease easily. I found that applying the copper slowly worked best. I had my co-club leader put together a slide show to help the students get started. We presented the task, background info, examples, and turned the students loose. We encouraged them to research more, then sketch up a design, and finally test it out. Most students were so excited to create and make something that they forgot some of the most important ideas to make their designs work. First, many missed the idea of actually using the copper tape to make a circuit and pass energy. Instead, they just sketched out any old path they felt like (instead of a parallel circuit pattern). Luckily, we caught many of those mistakes in the sketched rough drafts. Secondly, we found many of the circuits were not working because the students disregarded the +/- (positive/negative) sides of the circuit. The LEDs needed to be placed on the proper +/- side for the circuit to run. Next time it might be best to do a paper circuit all together to explain the ideas more clearly before the students get to choose their final project. I absolutely LOVED seeing the students cheers and hearing the excitement when their Christmas tree, dragon eyes, or heart lit up! I still really like this idea for students to work with paper circuits. |
Mrs. Christine ChiodoI am a junior high teacher at Pontiac Junior High School. Archives
February 2019
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