Week 4 Exploration with Circuits.

4-1 Explore Makey Makey, Energy Sticks and Squishy Circuits

Ellen luckily has 6 Makey Makey sets ready for teacher/student use. It was fun to start exploring circuits with these kid-friendly (adult-friendly too) devices. I learned from the videos and was reminded by Ellen that we need to ground one wire by holding onto it in order for the circuit connection to work. This step could easily be forgotten but you only make the mistake once! A mistake worth making and exploring for student. I thought it would be a great activity to do with my 6th grade Tech class. I look forward to seeing all of the designs they create. I virtually explored Energy Sticks and Squishy Circuits. I have Energy Sticks on my “To Buy” list. It also looks like a kid-friendly K-6 tinkering tool. I want to try squishy circuits with my 6th grade Tech Class starting tomorrow. I was thinking it would be fun to have them make the dough on their own and then design a claymation stop motion video for our next project. I was thinking of presenting squishy circuits for a teacher professional development as well because it’s so elementary friendly. I also can’t wait to try making the dough over the weekend with my 3 year old. Any tips of finding deionized water?

4-2 Circuit Simulators

I explored this option last after struggling with the Tinkering Kit and wish I did this first! I thought that the TinkerCad software was easy to use and the lessons were great. I do wish I learned how to

zoom-in earlier in the process though. It was also helpful to rotate the breadboard and redboard to match the position of the model in the lesson. Once I figured that out, it was easier to figure out where the pieces fit. It was thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding to connect the wires and sensor, much like a puzzle. I thought the circuit program and lessons were more intuitive than the 3D printing program. There was much less room for error.

4-3 Getting Started with Your Tinkering Kit

Oh, the Tinkering Kit! Upon opening the kit, I was quickly and swiftly able to follow the model for the first experiment. It was fun and easy to try to connect the wires and LED light in the correct places. I also enjoyed reading the tutorial in the lesson and learned more about circuitry and connections. Last year I made light-up card with my 4th graders. We used LED lights, lithium batteries and copper tape. I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t really understand the different parts of the LED light and I had no idea what LED stood for. I just sprung for the fun project and learned alongside the students. For the longest time we thought that some of the LED lights were broken until an engineering-minded student noticed that they had to be positioned in a certain way. So we learned to adjust the position of lights until they worked. I now know that it was because the long leg “anode” should be connected to the power source. The short leg “cathode” should be connected to the ground. I look forward to making the cards again with this new knowledge but I have to say I made that engineering-minded student’s (who struggled with traditional academics) day when he figured out the problem by tinkering.  By praising his thinking and tinkering, he was the star of the show. He helped everyone finish their circuits and was all smiles.

Shortly after connecting the wires, Ellen and I unfortunately spent countless hours trying to download the Arduino software. We tried her desktop, my chromebook and my laptop. Incorrect downloading, long running updates, faulty plug-ins, incorrect admin passwords, firewall blockages, and limited chrome app permissions were just a few problems we encountered. It was unfortunate that it took so long to get the Arduino software properly installed that we didn’t have too much time to tinker with the kit and look at other experiments. After two working sessions with our Technology Coordinator, we finally realized that the web versions were not working for us and finally download the windows software. When the computer was finally all set, both experiments worked well and we didn’t encounter any more hurdles. I did need to hold and adjust the blue wire for the 1st experiment to work. For the 2nd experiment, I forgot to turn the knob! Luckily Ellen, reminded me that turning the knob would change the intensity of the blinking light. All in all, it was fun to play with the kit, fruitful to problem-solve with with my buddy Ellen and it was a good lesson to make sure the computer software works properly before attempting with students.