We had a very exciting week at Michigan Makers this week, with lots of great things going on. We added a new mentor this week, welcoming Kelsey to our midst; we also had a past Michigan Maker back for a visit this week; and we even had a special guest visitor (but you’ll have to read the whole post to find out more about him!). Keep reading to hear about the highlights from our day.
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Demonstration of the Arduino+MP3 project in action. Although you can’t tell from a picture, the LEDs are groovin’ to the beat!
Activities at Michigan Makers this week:

  • Arduino 101 – Many of the Michigan Makers have already spent some time learning and exploring with the Arduino, but this week was another chance to bring some new folks into the fold. Terence and Caroline headed to the lab–it seems like they had a grand old time learning about this terrific tiny tech tool.
  • Arduino + MP3 Project – Speaking of Arduino, we had a few of students in the group working with a couple of mentors on a particular Arduino project. The group originally consisted of two dedicated makers, but this week, they added three more friends and continued troubleshooting their project. The goal? To get LEDs, controlled by an Arduino, to blink in time to the music of an MP3 file. Pretty awesome stuff, and they got it working today and did a demo for the whole group.
  • Scratch and the STEM Video Game Challenge – Another group of students seems pretty excited about making their own games, specifically video games. The group started learning about Scratch (the interactive programming environment from MIT) last week, and several students wanted to continue their explorations. Another few students wanted to use their own images as sprites, so they got out the green screen to stage their photo shoot.
  • Sewing 101 – And, our final activity was new for this week! We were pretty excited to get access to some used sewing machines and, with a little bit of work on Jessica’s part, we got them up and running and ready for the Makers! This week a group of students learned some sewing basics and started designing projects (to be continued next week).

Shout-Outs!

  • We gave Vincent a leadership badge this week in recognition of his boat-building challenge from a few weeks back. He showed some real initiative in approaching us with an idea, designing the challenge, and leading a group of his peers through the activity. We also introduced the option for students to design and develop their own badges, and I know a few form went out to eager folks.
  • Maya’s dad, Curt, was our special guest for the day. He and Maya gave a brief demonstration of the new Raspberry Pi cases they made for us–super awesome! You can check out the video of their making in action on the Michigan Makers Flickr account here. He also stayed for the day and offered some great expert support on the Arduino!
  • Finally, as already mentioned, Jacob and Justin demonstrated their Arduino+MP3 project in action, to the awe and encouragement of their peers. Erik also got the project up and running, so gave a demo of his blinking LEDs too. Congratulations to the three of them–and to Victoria and Shauna, who offered mentor support all along the way–great work!

Come back again soon to see what’s happening and what’s new at Michigan Makers!

–Ellen