You might have notices that every now and then, Google adds an illustration to its home page, changing the appearance of its logo in honor of a holiday or historical event. Google is currently  holding a “Doodle4Google” contest until December 7th.

This contest is an opportunity where “young artists can doodle with any materials to show what makes them unique, and the winner’s artwork will be featured on our homepage for a day.” We thought this was a great opportunity for the students to really let their imaginations run wild!  

We brought back some materials/ activities from previous weeks (batteries, LED’s, Lego’s, and LittleBits Kits) so that the students could build on what they’ve learned and incorporate these elements into their Google Doodle somehow. We also had a junk box filled with assorted paper, yarn, and other fun materials that the students could use.

Being that they essentially had a blank canvas, the possibilities were endless. Some were a bit unsure where to start and took some time to explore some materials before they got started on a design. Other students dove straight into the junk box and started pulling out different materials, figuring it out as they went. Every now and then, a student would simply color in the logo and stop there, saying that they had no other ideas. Some of our mentors sat with them and created some silly and wild designs, helping the students look beyond the literal logo and not be afraid to get a little crazy.

 All throughout the activity, the room was abuzz with excitement and lots of creative energy!

You can see more of our students’ AWESOME Doodles here.

This week at Mitchell we introduced hand-sewing finger puppets, along with the same stations from previous weeks (Hour of Code, Dash robots, junk box, and construction toys).

  We had some more kids finish Hour of Code today, including two who had been struggling a lot initially. It was wonderful to see them finish yesterday. One boy in particular was resolved to finish yesterday, and powered through the last few levels. He was very proud of his success, and couldn’t wait to try out Dash as his reward!  

We promised that we would start hand-sewing, since we had some requests already, so this was out first week practicing with this group. We decided to start with something small, and came up with the idea of felt finger puppets. We were impressed not only with how quickly kids picked up the hand-sewing, but how meticulously they focused on their stitches. Some of the amazing creations included a turkey (complete with wattle!), a kitten, and a snowman!

We got our hands on some Makey Makey kits this week. What’s Makey Makey? In short, it’s a kit that helps you turn everyday objects into touchpads that control your keyboard/computer. Conductive objects such as bananas, potatoes, plant leaves, and paper clips can be wired up and control different keys on your keyboard with the help of this kit. For more information about how Makey Makey works and project inspiration, check out this website http://makeymakey.com/howto.php.

None of the kids had ever seen a potato piano before and were very excited to play the one we had set up. In no time, they were making their own.

One of the first hurdles was figuring out how to play the potatoes to make music. Students had to hold onto the metal tip of an alligator clip with one hand while tapping the potatoes with the other hand. By doing this, their bodies helped close a circuit, connecting the current from the potato to the Makey Makey kit.

Students–not wanting to hold onto the clip with their fingers–got creative with making sure it stayed in contact with their skin: some would tape it to their hands, their arms, or their fingertips. This helped free up their hands and enabled them to interact more fully with their kit.

In addition to potatoes, what else could we use to play the piano? We had a bag of random objects that might work in place of potatoes and allowed them to experiment. The bag included: plant leaves (both dry and alive), paper clips, coffee stirrers, and assorted fruits.

We encouraged the students to explore using pencil graphite as a conductive medium and draw out their controllers on paper. With some trial and error, the students soon figured out how to connect their drawings to the kit and control the computer’s up/down/left/right/ keys by tapping on their drawings.

Drawing our own controllers. Will they work just as well as regular game controllers?

The students were astonished and excited when they learned that they could play a game of Tetris by simply tapping on their drawings. Graphite’s conductibility took a lot of us (even mentors) by surprise!

For more pics, check out our Flickr page!!

This week at Mitchell, we brought back the same stations: Hour of Code, Dash robots, junk box, and Tinker Toys and Kinex. A lot of kids are getting pretty anxious to try out the robots, and we hope it will continue to motivate them to try their Hour of Code.

Several students have begun to enjoy doing the Hour of Code, and jump right into the puzzles. We also had a few more students finish the Hour this week!  

The real treat this week was to see what kids were able to build with the junk box. This week, I saw a lot of making of useful or functional objects. Purses were a big theme this week, as three different girls made different versions of purses from supplies in the junk box.

Last week, we had one girl make a “laptop” out of materials from the junk box, which inspired a boy to make his own this week using bubble wrap, playing cards, and a marble. As he described it to me, “You have to punch the keyboard really hard, but it’s really lightweight!”  

Slingshots and model bows were also a big theme this week. One girl made a slingshot out of a fruit snacks box and some rubber bands, complete with storage for her ammunition (small recycled cardboard tubes)

We’ve been a bit tech- heavy these past few weeks and wanted to change things up. One of our activities was inspired by “mystery architecture” activities, where students are given a mystery bag of materials and must use the materials to build a structure to meet a challenge.

We challenged the students to work in teams and build a tower as tall as they could in 25 minutes. The ONLY materials they could use were the ones in their mystery bags. The structure must stand long enough for us to take a measurement.

Here’s what was in their bags:

• 20 toothpicks
• 20 mini-marshmallows
• 10 pieces of dried spaghetti
• 4 packing peanuts
• 2 drinking straws
• 2 coffee stirrers

The students took the the challenge right away. Some students surveyed the contents of their bag before strategizing how to best use the materials. Some dove right into building, sticking spaghetti into the marshmallows and creating height. It was exciting to watch them take such different approaches!

As structures started coming together (and climbing higher!), we noticed a lot of students taking a step back and figuring out how to address structural weaknesses. One team used a paper bag as the base but wanted to increase its stability since it was flimsy. Their solution? Roll up the opening of the paper bag (like you would to a long-sleeve shirt) to give it some stability. One student focused less on overall height and more on creating a solid, supportive base. We noticed all teams experimenting with triangle and square-shaped supports, figuring out which would be most secure.

Our highest tower stood at more than 3.5 feet tall!

To wrap up the day, we introduced them to LittleBits. These kits come with components that snap together to make light, sound, and motion. Because the components can be arranged in so many ways, we saw a range of creations: a light that only comes on after pressing a pressure sensor and a light switch, to a sound device that produces intergalactic sounds. The kids were asking about whether we could combine kits and make bigger versions of what they were working on. To be continued on at another time in Michigan Makers…?

This week at Mitchell, everything went a bit awry. We had planned on a rotation of three stations: Dash & Dot robots for those who have completed the Hour of Code puzzles/more Anna & Elsa for those who have not, building with Kinex, and making something from the junk box. But we forgot that we also needed to give the 5th graders a chance to make their own flashlight, and it ended up taking longer than we expected, even with all of the 4th graders helping show the 5th graders the ropes. And I forgot to charge the Dashes!

After the flashlights were done, we ended up allowing everyone to choose between Hour of Code, junk box, or Kinex. We were surprised that once everyone chose a station, the chaos really settled down, and the kids were able to make some pretty awesome things.

There was so much unbridled creativity present in the room. It’s amazing to see the range of projects they come up with: from a house with a roof supported by strings of plastic cord, to a headband made of pipe cleaners, electrical tape, and gold cord, to a miniature replica of a strawberry cake with vanilla ice cream on top! It was also great to see that kids were up to the challenge of using Blockly with the Dashes – even though they weren’t able to do so due to my charging fail!   

Just goes to show you that even when your plans fail, something amazing can still happen! I can’t wait to see what these kids come up with next. 

We’re a few days into November, but we can’t quite shake the Halloween spirit! This week, we grabbed some rolls of masking tape and a couple of straws to make spooky “mummy hands”.  We had a new Maker Mentor, Prakruthi, join us this week and we’re so excited to have her!

If you’re looking for a simple project that keeps kids engaged with just a few materials, this activity fits the bill.

This activity works best in pairs: one student is the “hand model” and the other wraps the masking tape around the hand model. The students can switch off after one mummy hand has been completed.

This is how it works:

1. Place a plastic straw on the hand model’s hand so that it lines up from the tip of their middle finger down the center of their hand.
2. Wrap masking tape around the hand (over the straw) in layers with the sticky side facing OUT (smooth, non-sticky side touches the skin). This is important because if the sticky side were touching the skin, it would be difficult and dangerous to remove the hand from the “tape cast” that forms. From our experience, it works best if you start from the base of the hand and wrap your way up the hand and around the fingers!
3. Once your hand is covered, do a final layer of tape so that the smooth side faces OUT, creating a smooth, non-sticky exterior.
4. To extract the hand, carefully use scissors to cut from the base of the hand up the palm (almost to the fingers) along the straw. The hand model can wiggle their hand out and tape the cut in order to close the hand.

We had a bunch of fun with these! Some got creative with their hand poses and made claws with them. We heard kids talking about how cool it’d be to put lights into the hands or placing sensors in them to make noises when someone gets too close to the hand. Creating a mummy hand is just the beginning! What could YOU do with a mummy hand?