How did an entire school year just fly by? Because a majority of the Mentors will be graduating in a few short weeks, this week marked the last Michigan Makers session until we return in the fall! We had a full range of STEAM activities for our students to dive into: resistance dying, LittleBits, Rainbow Looms, Legos, and TechBox Tricks. There’s something for everyone!

I was inspired by this simple yet cool idea for using rubber bands, paper, and cardboard (which we had lying around and went unused by our students for some time):  https://babbledabbledo.com/easy-art-projects-for-kids-rubber-band-art/

Can you believe that with a little bit of water color, you can make that? We brought this idea to our students, and they all went for it! You could hear a lot of, “Hey, how did you do that?” and, “How did you make that effect?” going around among students. Our Makers were more than happy to share with their peers how they made a certain effect and to share tips on how to make the rubber band lines more distinct (TIP: Gently dab the water color onto the paper, no wiping!).

One of our students admitted that she’s terrible at art and was convinced that whatever she makes is going to look bad (thus deciding not to try). We reassured her that if she didn’t like what she made, that’s OK! We encouraged her to try anyways and let her know that all the Makers were there to experiment and ask/offer help to each other when we needed it. One of her friends made a design that she liked, and after asking her friend how she could get her paper to like her friend’s, she engaged more with the activity and stuck it out to the end, making her own custom design.

Legos have been a hit with our savvy Makers, and this week was no exception! Students dove into the bin, building airplanes, landscapes, houses, and cars.

We had sets of TechBox Tricks out and tipped them off on how a simple circuit from the Techbox Tricks could power up and bring their Lego cars to life. You should see how hard they worked: Tinkering away, they were tried balancing battery packs in the vehicles and positioning a small motor to spin a car’s axles. Other vehicles ran on potential energy stored in a wound-up rubber band strung across the axles! Watch out, world. We’ve got some problem-solving, super motivated engineers coming your way in a few years!

It’s been a great year with these Makers. Every week, we’re impressed with how these students put their heads together and commit to making something. We’re proud of all the hard work they’ve put  in this year and hope they continue to be Makers in the future!

This week at Michigan Makers saw the junk box and 3D printer still going strong! We also brought back many of the same things from the past few weeks, including littleBits, Hour of Code, Lego, and Kinex. We also brought back the Dash robots as well as the tiny Ozobot, which follows the path you draw for it and changes the color of its lights accordingly.

We finally were able to draw a path for the Ozobot

We discovered through experimentation that drawing a path for the Ozobot takes some serious pigmentation, and also that it works best when the turns are gently curved instead of right angles.

Tiny table for some tiny Shopkins!

The junk box was as popular as ever, especially for making miniatures like the tiny table for Shopkins above, and an equally tiny teacup.

Hour of Code has become a real hit with some of the kids

Hour of Code has remained a hit with a lot of the kids, some of whom have spent the majority of the last two weeks on the Blockly-based coding activities. One student told me he can’t wait to keep practicing at home and show his mom what he has been up to!

Prying off 3D prints is harder than you would think

Last but certainly not least, we have been making progress ensuring that every student who wants to print something using the 3D printer has their chance. We have been consistently impressed with how careful the students are around the printer!

One more week to go, Makers!

The 3D printer is back! And so was the junk box, with even more fresh supplies than last week.

Tulle makes for great costumes

Did I mention that among the junk box supplies was a huge pile of tulle? Between that and the Hawaiian leis and some discarded Valentine’s Day garland, there were some truly inspired costuming creations this week.

Getting the headband just right

Popular choices were headbands, crowns, and other more elaborate headdresses, but we also had belts and what I can only describe as an improvised chest-plate made from what may once have been a woven straw trivet.

littleBits Korg kits (and coding in the background!)

I was pleased to see more interest in the littleBits kits this week, and since we were 3D printing, we had some kids ask to do Hour of Code or Build with Chrome. It’s always a little bit heartwarming to have kids asking you if they are allowed to practice computer coding.

3D design using Cookie Caster

The 3D printer was back and loaded with some gold-colored filament this week. We had some really intricate 3D creations printed this week using Cookie Caster (Kristin and I didn’t even know it was possible to make such detailed creations using that program)!

See you again next week, Makers!

After a few weeks without Michigan Makers, this week showed a renewed burst of energy and creativity. We had to carry on with Michigan Makers this week without Kristin, who was on a whirlwind conference schedule. Thankfully, we had a parent volunteer and Sandy from Scarlett to help fill the gap! We weren’t able to bring the 3D printer this week, but we brought a lot of the old staples including the junk box, Snap Circuits, Lego and Kinex (with a new donation of Kinex from our lovely parent volunteer!).

Junk box remains as popular as ever!

We also brought in all of our littleBits kits – something which we have brought in past weeks but which has so far not gotten much attention. Because littleBits can take a bit of concentration and perseverance to master, I made a point of encouraging kids this week to give them a try.

Making music with littleBits!

It turns out, the key was just to provide a little motivation, in the form of the Korg synthesizer kits. Once some of the students realized they could make music with littleBits, they were sold. And having listened to some of their beats myself, I have to admit they may be onto something.

Cool Circuits Puzzle

We also had a fresh bout of supplies for our junk box, which translated to some extraordinary bursts of creativity! One of the creations included a video camera complete with tiny folding viewscreen on the side.

Showing off her camera

Others went very avant-garde today, choosing to express themselves through a landscape of items that they deemed representative of their “workshop.”

Fresh junk box supplies!

Great job makers – looking forward to future weeks and the return of the 3D printer.

Recently, I came across some STEM activities by The Ardent Teacher. The “Designing Life Jackets for Babies” looked like a great activity for getting students to experiment and think critically about design. I adapted the activity so that we would use weighted plastic army men instead.

We posed the following challenge: Create a life jacket that will keep your army man face-up above the water with just a piece of foam and 2 small rubber bands.

Since the army men float easily on their won, we attached weights to them (nuts from the hardware store were $.05 each!) to make it more challenging to float.

Despite attaching these weights, the students quickly found out how to keep their army men afloat. Anticipating this, we put different spins on the challenge:

• Imagine that 2 army men must share one flotation device. How could you modify your flotation device so that both men could stay face-up above water?
• In the real world, engineers face challenges all the time. Sometimes, you don’t have as much material as you’d like to create a design. But engineers find a way to make their designs work! Now, with half of the material you start with, create a life vest to keep 1 (or 2 if you want to challenge yourself!) army man afloat.
• Imagine that your army man is parachuting out of the sky and will be landing in the water. With the materials given, design a flotation device such that when he’s dropped from 1 or 2 feet above the water, he is able to safely float to the surface and keep his head above the water.

These variations kept the students engaged and trying new things. Sometimes the army man floated face-down or barely stayed above water, and the students would try placing the foam on different areas of the army man to counter his weight and help him float upright.

To wind down, our students switched gears and worked with Little Bits and Rainbow Looms! 

We had quite the menu of options this week at Mitchell!

Along with the regular offerings of Lego, Kinex, Tinker Toys, and the junk box, we also brought back the Dash robots, Roominate, the Design Studio game, and Snap Circuits as well.

Powering a fan with Snap Circuits.

And, for the fans of Snap Circuits, we also brought a few littleBits kits this week. These kits include modules that snap together and allow kids (and adults!) to build a variety of projects as they learn about inputs, outputs, and circuits.

Trying out the littleBits Space Kit.

However, the most exciting activity this week was the debut of the 3D printer!

3D Printing the Michigan “M.”

Kristin and I have seen the 3D printer operate a fair number of times, but watching the kids become entranced by the printing reminded us of how cool this technology really is to watch. Some kids spent the whole day today just watching the printer chug along!

Lego Nyan cat meets junk box UFO.

We are really looking forward to future weeks, and hoping we can give everyone the opportunity to create something of their own using the 3D printer.

In the spirit of trying new things (this is a Makers group after all!), we brought in a 3-D printer for the students. One of our Maker mentors, Mayank, had been diligently repairing our 3-D printer for the past few months, and we were ready to take it for a spin. To say they were excited about it would be an understatement. We mentors provided the resources (the printer, links to websites to develop designs), and the students provided the creativity.

Watching the 3-D printer in action

Each of the students had an opportunity to develop their own designs and get them printed. We directed them to https://www.tinkercad.com/, an easy-to-learn website where they could create their designs. Our students took to it without much help from us mentors and were willing to help each other modify their designs with tricks they learned while using the site.

Working in TinkerCad

Which comic book character will this design become?

The site had numerous shapes, designs, and letters for them to pick from. We had designs ranging from human skulls, comic book characters, initials, and even a pair of dice for board games! We loaded the designs into a laptop that was hooked up to the printer. Slowly but surely, the designs were then transformed into 3-D objects before our eyes.

Learning about the printer from our Maker Mentor and resident 3-D printing expert, Mayank!

Sometimes, the printer has difficulty printing intricate designs. When designs came out looking kind of funny or lost some of their detail, our students instinctively looked at the designs and thought of ways they could improve the design so that next time their designs would print the way they intended. Problem solving and iteration in action! With this initial printing experience under their belts, what will they print next? It’ll be exciting to see them take these concepts and experiences and build on them in the coming weeks.

Check out more pics and activities from this week HERE.