Toy Hacking Week 3

This was my very first experience with toy hacking and I loved every minute. Although I was stumped at many points, it was the problem solving with Ellen and students that I enjoyed the most. I brought in a few toys and so did Ellen. Over the weekend, I opened up a talking teddy bear (it had never worked so I didn’t feel bad destroying it) and immediately got overwhelmed with the wires and circuit board. I watched a few more videos and waited until a talked with Ellen on Monday. I knew that she had hacked a few toys in her day.

On Monday, I brought Lightening McQueen car that made a simple, “vrooom” sound the teddy bear was complicated and still not working.  It seemed like a better toy to start with since it only had one speaker and one input button. The inside was still overwhelming but I enjoyed trying to identify the wires. It was easy to see that the red/black wires connected to the battery pack but the other colored wires were confusing. Ellen’s toy was much more sophisticated with multiple speakers, lights and inputs. One of the videos mentioned not to cut the wires so I was hesitant to do so. We examined some more and didn’t know how to proceed. That’s when we both joked that Elliott, an engineering-brain tinkering master of the 5th grade, would know what to do. So we called in the big guns and asked him to take a look. He immediately asked for some wire cutters and wire strippers. Although still hesitant to cut, we cut two purple wires from the car. We choose to cut those wires because when we put our finger on the circuit board near them it changed sounds. We tried putting the purple wires other places on the board but it didn't work. However, when we touched the two purple wires together we got a clear  “vrooom” sound. I guess we disabled the input button by cutting the wires and it was a lot of fun to touch the wires together to get a new “vrooom” sound. Ellen did the same to her toy and the same thing happened. We tried touching her wires to the car wires but nothing happened. We finally felt some hacking success but still didn’t know how to connect my car to Ellen’s driving toy so we decided to eat lunch.

Afterschool, Ellen and I reconvened and were discussing how to get the sound of my car to her driving toy when a group of 6th graders walked into the room. Ellen suggested that we needed to eliminate a speaker from one toy. They were like hungry dogs looking at slops begging to tinker and play. It was then when I realized that I need to do this with my 6th grade Tech Class. It was clear these kids are not afraid to problem solve in this situation. Their imaginations were running wild, offering Ellen and I suggestions. I made a mental note to ask the 6th graders to start bringing in toys for next week!  I also realized at this moment that I was so happy I decided to do this project at school. I think it was so valuable that the students got to see Ellen and I learning like students, stumped at every turn and they were the ones coaching us with suggestions. I love when the roles reverse.

The 6th grade group encouraged us to cut some more wires. Like Elliott, they were also “cutting hungry” unafraid to breaking something. Again I was surprised how much more willing they were to tinker than I was. We cut the blue wires on my car and the yellow wires that connected to the speaker on Ellen’s driving toy. Then connected these speaker wires together and then transferred the sound from the car to the driving toy. It felt good to get our feet wet with circuit bending!

Doing this with students next week has me filled with mixed emotions and some questions. I loved the energy we noticed from Elliott and 6th grade group and I am excited to try this out. I am a bit worried that I don’ have the background knowledge of wiring to help students. When researching, it appears that every toy is made differently and there are no true hard and fast rules about toy hacking only about the design process.  I plan to use the planning sheets and steps you outlined for us with this assignment. I thought the video identifying the input wires (although it could be any color) and red and black wires will also be a great resource.  It seems like toy hacking is very open-ended which can make any teacher squirm but will result in true making and discovery. Are there any more wiring information sheets/videos that might be good for 6th grade?

Cardboard Creations

Today was a fun day! I got out my “maker” box to gather all of my gluing and cutting utensils and then went to town on my recycling pile. I spent entirely too long making cardboard flowers which turned into a floral collage.  I had fun researching and designing different flower shapes and experimenting with colors. I even starting taking food out of boxes in the cabinet to get certain colors. I went a bit overboard, although I had fun, and my final product looks rather erratic. It was so erratic that I decided to make it a sign for my daughter. It needed some kind of focus/purpose.

If I were to do it again, I would make a simpler design with the flower types that turned out well. So I am considering my busy design more of a test prototype for future cardboard flowers! With extra scrap pieces I made a quick vase with one of my favorite flowers.

Overall, I really enjoyed making this freeform design. This was not my first time playing and making with cardboard boxes for fun.  This was a favorite childhood activity besides building outdoor forts. My children love doing pretend play in boxes and drawing on them. I look forward to watching them create designs of their own as they grow.  Today I took an old box I didn’t use and turned it into a parking lot to help my 3 year work on his numbers. I recently saw this idea on Pinterest. After matching up a few cars to their parking lot, he ripped the numbers. He played with the parking lot/ramp for hours.

 
 

This experience made me realize that children of all ages should have the opportunity to create with cardboard. I followed the Global Cardboard Challenge link and would love to implement this at our school on October 7th.  Cardboarding making seems like a great step to begin the maker space journey with students. This is the perfect first step.

1st Experience with 3D Printing

Although I have seen the TinkerCad website and have watched a printer work its magic, I had limited experience with 3D printing until this week. I must admit that I thought TinkerCad would have been easier to use. I did struggle a bit trying to design an iphone holder but after a few failed attempts I decided to explore TinkerCad another day. I am glad I did. I just finished a final project that I am proud to share. Instead of an iphone holder, I decided to create a sign for our school’s new maker lab called Cambridge Create. I have been trying to design a sign for weeks now but never seemed to have the right materials. I can’t image a more fitting tool than the 3D printer to make the sign.  I figured out that my trouble the first day had to do with the view setting I was on. I could not move shapes up or down. Like all technology, I got easily frustrated but only needed fresh eyes and some good old fashion persistence to create something great. The design is rather simple and I look forward to getting more comfortable with TinkerCad.

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/dr7qLDwvQHq-neat-luulia-juttuli/editv2?sharecode=pvRrxCjlzIT6uNltNuE0sIZKnaQeks4yHFNhsj_-Ahk=

Looking at the designs my students created last year, I am amazed how quickly they picked up this tool. Many made elaborate boats and figurines as a project in art class. Yesterday, Ellen and I asked the Art Teacher to give us a tour of 3D printing. We couldn’t get it to work because of software issues with ZSuite. I guess ZSuite is a tool to help the person printing (or teacher) look for final corrections with the model before printing. Nonetheless, we learned the general process: how to turn the printer on, load and unload the plastic and tips for saving designs. She had some great ideas that included student names and color in the file name. She emphasized that the printing takes so long (hours in many cases) that students may not be available when you need to ask which file belongs to them and which color they wanted.  Many great tips were learned and I can not wait to start printing!

I look forward to using the 3D printer with my 6th grade tech class and maybe some other grades in the building. I want projects to be spurred directly from students’ questions or needs. I don’t want to be just printing meaningless fidget spinners but I also know that creating anything helps student develop persistence and tinkering skills.  I would like to do more research on best practices for the classroom that honor student inquiry. Some ideas I have might be to have the 4th grade design log cabins based on the book Green Mountain Hero. Students can take notes on how the author describes the log cabin and how it was built. Then they can use their notes to recreate models with the 3D printer.  For my 6th grade tech class, I want to pose the questions: “What is an obstacle in your life?” and “What would make your life easier?”  Students can invent and then create a object that would solve some sort of problem in their lives. Perhaps some students will create apps while others will create a physical object with tactile materials or the 3D printer.