The previous session was spent exploring Littlebits and making example circuit projects. This again was a useful session. These guided activities proved engaging enough to take the students away from Minecraft play! Here is Morgan's Chair Piano using Makey Makey:
Today I let the students loose on Makey Makey. I showed the intro video, then we went through the how-to instructions on the Makey Makey website. The students were thoroughly engaged and stayed on task the whole session, with the most popular tasks being playing online games using either coin input or pencil drawn keyboard. The previous session was spent exploring Littlebits and making example circuit projects. This again was a useful session. These guided activities proved engaging enough to take the students away from Minecraft play! Here is Morgan's Chair Piano using Makey Makey:
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We now have a backpack (hive) with 8 rechargeable BeeBot floor robots which moves between the JK, K & Gr1 classes. At present they're visiting the Kindergarten classes. Here are a couple of short videos showing the BeeBots in action.
The BeeBot floor robot has simple forward, backward, left & right controls, and is programmable with up to 40 commands in sequence.
The Gr4 Classes made kites as part of their math & Science work. I was asked to use the school drone to film them testing their kites for airworthiness. As it was such a bright day I wasn't fully able to see what I was filming, but we were very pleased with the end result!
The Grade 1 classes are studying plants, and are planting seedlings into the school garden. We used the 2Animate lite app in Purplemash to create plant animations. here are a few examples:
Although it took a lot of work we were very pleased with our latest episode. A bit longer than the last one, but this time we featured 7 student stories and more students, including first timers. Things to focus on the future will be transitions, student interviews and a welcome overview outlining stories coming up. Low numbers this week due to conflicting events, but as there were only 2 students I thought it would be a great opportunity to practise some soldering. We started with programming the Ozobots, then moved onto the 4-Solder Zoo Kit to make blinky animal badges. The boys loved the final result. It took a lot longer than I thought to complete the project, so I'll allow more time next week when the other students return. I now need to plan out the other projects we'll be attempting at our Makerspace. Just 5 students after school to launch our Makerspace, but I know there'll be others after the Quebec trip. After watching some videos and talking about some of the projects we can do, we ended up playing with various robots and checking out Minecraft Scratch creations online. The students found it hard to focus on an individual project, so I may need to be more directive about our chosen activities.Next week we'll solder some LED animal kits. Simon is also going to bring his Vex kit to show and work on. Another sunny day, so maybe it was no surprise that only six students dropped in today! They really enjoyed using KinderLOGO and made good progress with the activities, producing some lovely work. I was thrilled that 30 students decided to come to the Gr2 Tech Club, rather than spend lunch recess outside on a very sunny day! It is a drop-in format, so numbers can vary, but it is usually well attended. We did some physical robotics using the students themselves, then they paired up and played Turtle Pond on the computer. This is an excellent intro to LOGO and turtle graphics. They also used the Bee-Bot floor robot with a partner. Next week: Road & Pro-Bots. The Gr1 classes wanted to start their coding lessons so I decided to start them off with 2Go on the 2Simple Purple Mash website. Some of the students encountered difficulties with the coding challenges, but all were able to gain a sense of direction and distance. I used Simon Haughton's 2Go guide which proved most useful, especially with using a blank screen rather than the themed picture backgrounds.
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March 2018
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