Maker Centered Learning Blog

Another first for me this week! I have no previous experience with vinyl/laser cutters. I decided to use Gravit.io to make my design.Our computers at school don't have Adobe Illustrator, at least not yet! After working this week's projects we're considering loading them on a few computers in our Makerspace. I found the Gravit.io website simple and kid friendly, considering my lack of knowledge, but also saw that it had lots of more sophisticated applications to be explored. Faith, Jeremy (our IT specialist) and I met up with Lucie at Generator in Burlington on Tuesday afternoon to cut our designs (and think about what we might want to have at school.) I hadn't seen the Generator's new home and loved the openness of the new facility. Lucy introduced us to Brook, who was making paper cut outs of hyperbolic paraboloids. I am drawn to this application as an approachable, artistic, mathematical project for students. Next Lucie took a look at the designs Fai...

Faith and I met bright and early on Monday morning (Maker Mondays!) and completed Experiments 8 and 9 fairly quickly. Maybe we can blame our Monday brains for a couple of missteps. With Experiment 8, we forgot to put spinner on the motor at first. We also had a moment of confusion when a book diagram from another Arduino kit was different from online diagram. We followed the online version to success. Experiment 8: Using a Servo Motor https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwDIPYofjRLbaXVBbXFfMXlMRUlmaTA3Ul82MEVPTTdQV0Jr/view?usp=sharing Then, with Experiment 9, it took us a while to find the H-Bridge until we realized it had a cover that was disguising it. Experiment 9: Driving a Motor with an H-Bridge https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwDIPYofjRLbWFU5c3gyTWdTWTZaRDJQSUdSMGhtVS03M2VV/view?usp=sharing Experiment 10: Controlling a Motor with Inputs Talk about attention to detail! Lots of connections on this one, and I wonder how anyone with large hands could wire this.  We...

Week 5  Reflection Prompt: Last week was my first direct experience with the arduino. I was first introduced to arduinos at a library conference, and then later in Lucie's Create Make Learn class. That said, I feel like my arduino brain fog is lifting and, while I really don't fully understand  WHY it works, I am slowly gaining confidence in HOW it works. I'm really glad we continued our arduino investigation this week while the software use was still fresh in my memory. Experiment 3: Driving an RGB LED We found that if we hold the resister wires down the colors rotated better. Experiment 4: Driving Multiple LEDs We had a problem uploading to the redboard. We discovered that we had the LED in backwards. The flat sided short leg goes into the negative position. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwDIPYofjRLbNTgxamd1eWdTNU1FNmg0NW1TdUptVjZ2M0lF/view?usp=sharing Experiment 5: Reading a Button Press We found the button hard to put in place because the s...

This week's virtual tasks started smoothly as I enjoyed the videos, especially Jay Silver's Ted Talk, "Hack a Banana." I love the idea of going out into the woods and just making something. What a fun way to explore the design process TMI with children. "Amelia's Squishy Circuit" Ted Talk gave me a new perspective on the value of the tinkering in regards to handicaps. This is an enlightening video for parents, teachers and kids. I liked the simplicity of presentations in https://www.tinkercad.com/learn/ and feel that this could be used whole group or by children independently. The website could be open for use in the classroom or maker space as needed and/or students could simply bookmark it on their chromebooks or ipads. I started my physical exploration of circuits with Makey Makey. I have introduced it to students before but (as often seems to happen) they took it to a much more advanced level than I did. I wanted to try connecting a pencil t...