It has been another fantastic round in the lab. From origami and two-frame animations to moving masterpieces programmed with Micro:bit, the students have created some truly wonderful things.
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
This round I introduced the Kindergarten students to the craft of origami. It is such a wonderful way to practice fine motor coordination. Even though they all fold the same model, the creative ways they decorate their work makes each piece unique. Most of the first grade students had the introductory origami unit last year, so for this year they learned to fold models of increased complexity. It was a fairly big step up, and there was some frustration, but every student was eventually successful. It is not an origami thing, but most classes also got to try their hand at 2 frame animations. This is something along the lines of a flip book, but with just two images switched rapidly back and forth. See below for some hightlights.
2nd Grade
A few years ago I started introducing the second graders to the full version of Scratch at the end of the year. The hope was that they would be able to begin 3rd grade ready to use Scratch to make real projects rather than learning the particulars of the new platform. The jump in complexity from Scratch Jr to Scratch is quite large. Not only are there hundreds more command blocks and a far greater range of project possibilities, but there is also the distraction of learning to navigate the online version of Scratch where students turn in their work, share projects, and try projects made by others. In second grade we use the offline version of Scratch and students complete a set of tutorials that I have chosen first because they teach particular programming skills, and second because they allow for a great deal of student creativity within the guided practice. My favorite part of this unit is listening to the excitement as students make a discovery and call out to their frineds, "Look what I made!". Someone then asks, "How did you do that?", and before long they are all sharing their learning with each other.
3rd Grade
As students move up through the grade levels in the STEM Lab, the projects increasingly rely on both digital as well as physical elements. The 3rd graders got their first taste of that with the interactive science posters they created in round 4 using the Makey Makey. Another tool we use rather often in the lab is the BBC Micro:bit. This microcontroller differs from the Makey Makey in that it is programable and has a number of input and output possibilities built in. In addition to a couple of buttons, it also contains an accelerometer (tilt sensor), light and sound sensors, a thermometer, and capacitive touch capabilities. For outputs, it has a 5 x 5 LED "screen" and a small speaker. It also has i/o pins that can be used to control external components (see below in the 5th grade section). We spent the first few days of the week creating animations and sound effects programs using the buttons and the tilt sensor. The culminating project had students use construction paper and craft materials to build a model animal, a "micro:pet" if you will. Then they wrote a program for the Micro:bit and attached the device to their model animal to make it interactive and animated.
4th Grade
Last round, 4th grade researched one of the Texas state parks and began work on a Scratch project to act as a digital tour guide for that park. This time the students completed their Scratch projects and created a poster-sized park make to accompany their program. Some groups took the added step of making the map interactive using the Makey Makey, though not every group had time for that due to a number of short weeks during round 4 that cut into the amount of work they were able to complete. I was really impressed with the variety in the finished projects. The completed Scratch projects can be see in this studio and a few highlights in the video below.
5th Grade
This round had 5th graders creating moving masterpieces with programmed LEDs and servo motors. This project was the resurrection of one I did years ago. Back then we used the Raspberry Pi computers and had 2 week magnet rotation blocks. The shift to one week blocks forced me to reimagine how to do this with a single week. In the end it was the Micro:bit to the rescue. The first day of the week we went over how to build the circuits connecting the Micro:bit to the motor and the LEDs. Students programmed these components to blink and move in various ways. Next they created a picture and mounted it to a file folder. I cut the openings for the lights and motor and the students did the wiring and programming. I was so impressed by the creative ways they made their pictures come to life!
