We didn’t have Makers last week due to Fall Break at University of Michigan but were excited to get going again. With Halloween less than a week away, we had darkness and light on our minds. This week, we created homemade flashlights from LED’s, coin-sized batteries, and a simple paper stencil.

This activity is a great refresher about creating simple circuits. When the end pins of the LED come in contact with the battery, the LED lights up but ONLY if the LED is in the correct orientation with respect to the battery! A few students didn’t know why their LED’s weren’t lighting up, and it was a great opportunity to review this concept.

By pressing on the housing (paper stencil) and creating contact between the battery and LED, we had our flashlights. By the end of the activity, we had flashlights in all different colors; it was like a light show! The students were excited to bring these Trick-or-Treating with them later this week.

Some students moved on and began building with Legos. We encouraged them to somehow  incorporate their flashlights into their Lego creations. One student built a maximum security Lego house with a light that goes off when the door is opened, building on the flashlight that he made earlier. That’s pretty cool!

This week, we tinkered with Legos and TechBox Tricks. Legos have been a favorite here at Michigan Makers, and our students immediately took to them, building everything from fortresses to landscapes. We were excited to bring along the TechBox tricks this week because they could easily be incorporated into just about anything you make, especially with Legos.

From the TechBox website:

“TechBox is a series of electronics modular kits for DIY enthusiasts, electronic beginners and educators. With the plug and make feature, the entry level TechBox Tricks sets you to a good start on a journey of creation without any requirement of programming knowledge.”

With the help of a 9V battery energy source, students constructed simple circuits by combining an input (such a light sensor or a switch) with an output (buzzer, spinning motor, or LED). We found students placing motors into their Lego structures, making conveyor belts and door alarms. One student even said that she would use the TechBox kit to create an alarm that would go off if it detected someone getting too close to her piggy bank. We get so excited when they think about how they could apply these concepts and ideas in their everyday lives!

This week, we had some newcomers join us at Makers. To get them in the mindset of creating, building, and troubleshooting, we had the newcomers start with Hour of Code. HourofCode.org has a series of activities geared towards introducing students to coding. Our students worked on an activity creating snowflake shapes with Ana and Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen”. When someone got stuck, students that were ahead in the activity helped them along. It’s a great way to test your of the code and what you just learned!

We also had Dot and Dash robots with us. We loaded our iPads with a number of different apps that would enable the students to control the robots. To command a robot to do something, some apps require the student to create a sequence of commands, which closely mirrored coding and the coding activities they did in Hour of Code.

Our students got creative with these robots this week. With the Path app, students were able to design paths on the iPad for Dash to navigate in real life. They didn’t shy away from adding light and sound effects to the path, either!  

It was low-key this week, as we are still in the process of reaching out to students. For now, we are working with 6th graders. Our focus has been to get our students in the mindset of creating, building, and troubleshooting. We had our students start off with Hour of Code. HourofCode.org has a series of activities geared towards introducing students to coding. Our students worked on an activity creating snowflake shapes with Ana and Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen”.

The online activities encourage them to experiment with different code combinations and figure out why they malfunction, an important skill that carries over into making and inventing! Several students saw resemblances to Blockly, a drag-and-drop, visual programming tool. As educators, we get excited seeing students making these connections and bringing their past experiences into new ones.