Let the Games Begin!

The cardboard arcade has become a yearly fixture in the STEM lab calendar for 3rd grade. I place this in the third grading cycle because it usually has an extra week and few interruptions to the schedule.

We start with a brief overview of what exactly is an arcade. I always include both definitions (covered passageway lined with shops AND place to play games for a fee), because I see myself as a teacher of all subjects. Then we watch and discuss the Nirvan Mullick film Caine's Arcade which is the original inspiration for the whole cardboard arcade phenomenon. The movie documents the arcade built by a 10 year old boy who was spending the summer hanging around in his father's auto parts store.

Next students get together in teams, or elect to work independently, and brainstorm ideas. I place as few limitations on them as I am able. The games must be table top size and must be playable by first and second graders. I encourage the students be be as creative and not just make a replica of an arcade game they saw at Dave and Buster's. Once an idea is selected, students begin planning in their journals. These plan include a list of materials, steps for completion, and direction for how to play the game. I insist on a detailed plan because I find that it cuts down on the amount of materials that are wasted. During the planning phase I meet with each group to offer feedback on their design. Depending on what they are trying to make, I ask questions to get them thinking about the details that will need to be included. That may be "how will you build the ball return?", "how will you stop the ball from flying across the room?", or "how will player know they have won?".

The construction and testing phase lasts several days. While I do help with some of the tougher cutting tasks, I make the students do as much of the hard work as possible. Last year I banned the use of tape in construction because it is wasteful and fails to hold the game together anyway. I spend a lot of the building class periods teaching students to use white glue and structural elements like L-braces and flanges to attach pieces of cardboard to one another. There is much gnashing of teeth in the beginning when I refuse to produce a roll of tape for them to mummify their project with. However, once a few students get the hang of the glue techniques, they are eager to share their skills with others.

The final phase of the project is always the presentation. I invite a class from a lower grade to come and play the games. I never know who will be available from which grade level, so I prepare the 3rd graders for the fact that they may end up entertaining anyone from Kindergarten through 2nd grade. They are always so excited to show off what they have made and the only disappointment ever voiced is that I did not invite their former teacher or the class with their sibling to participate.

There have been some really great projects so far in this unit including a 3 story escape room game, a pinball machine, and a nicely done soccer/hockey mash-up game.

It's Cardboard Arcade Season in the STEM Lab

One of my favorite STEM Lab projects, and one of the most over all successful, is the cardboard arcade. It is one of the few units that I have run every year since founding the lab and I have yet to get tired of it. That's because after hundreds of cardboard arcade games passing under my gaze, I am continually surprised by what the students come up with. I have settled on doing this project with 3rd grade for no better reason than it helps students learn the construction techniques that I want them to employ going forward. It demonstrates in a very real way that masking tape is not the best material to hold to large pieces of cardboard together with when people are going to be throwing balls at it for an hour.

For anyone who is not familiar with this unit, it is one of many offshoots from the original Caine's Arcade seen in the movie at the link. In short, a 9 year old boy in Los Angeles named Caine spent the summer at his father's auto parts store and entertained himself by making replica arcade games with the left over boxes around the shop. Filmmaker Nirvan Mulick discovered Caine's Arcade when he stopped in to by a door handle for his car and made a movie about it. Since the film debuted the cardboard arcade has become a staple of the maker movement in schools. 

One of the best parts of this unit is inviting other classes, usually first grade or kindergarten to the lab to try out the games. I have found that when students know they will have an audience from beyond their class and me, they become more deeply engaged and personally invested in their work. They are more apt to take creative chances that result in project far more wonderful than anything I could assign.

Use The Forces!

This rotation of STEM Lab finds the second graders exploring forces and motion by building mazes and marble runs. This is one of those experimental units that I implement from time to time. As a result, each group's experiences and projects were a little different as I tweaked and adjusted based on how well various activities went in previous interactions.

The unit began with students recording some simple observations in their journals how a marble rolls around in a paper box lid with some straws taped to it. I gave them some starter questions, 'how does the marble move when the box is flat? When you tilt the box?' and so on. We discussed their observations and then did some research into force and motion with Brain Pop Jr. Students took notes in their journals about words like motion, position, and force. We discussed how these terms related to their observations.

The first build of the unit was a marble maze using Lego bricks. A Lego plate is, of course, covered with bumps which effects how the marble rolls. This gave us the opportunity to talk about friction and how a rough surface is not as good for rolling objects. What I have ended up loving most about this part of the unit is how creative the students were with their mazes. I saw mazes not just with dead ends, but traps that it was impossible to escape. There were tunnels and bridges. Some mazes had checkpoints that had to be reached in a certain order. Several had the kind of elaborate back stories that second graders specialize in telling. Sure, they learned about the pull of gravity and how the walls push back on the marble to stop it or change its direction, but the creative expression was the biggest win.

The second build brought us back to cardboard box lids and straws as we shifted to making marble runs instead of mazes. The first time through this part I learned the distinction between a "maze" and a "run" was not clear to a number of students. This became evident as the first batch of attempts had dead ends that prevented the marble from reaching the bottom of the box. A bit of explanation and the added constraint that their runs could not have straws that the marble does not touch, and the results improved dramatically. Students were challenged to make runs that used a certain number of straws and that took certain amounts of time to complete the course. I have been really impressed by how the students problem solved for the different design requirements.

There are definitely some things I would adjust about this unit, like additional building materials, surfaces, and marble sizes in order to more deeply examine the effects they have on the outcomes observed. Overall though I am fairly pleased with how this went and I look forwards to its next iteration.

Games 5th Graders Play

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Along with with the delicious food, thoughtful cards, and other gifts, I received a number of notes from 5th graders thanking me for their time in the lab and in various after school activities. One expressed gratitude for teaching "programming and how make cool things", but also stated it was time "to move on to bigger and better things". Yes it is, and I fully expect to see great things from this group of 5th graders.


Before moving on though, the 5th graders got one last chance to the test case for a unit. (I usually experiment with new ideas and units using the 5th graders because they will be gone the next year, and they can mostly be counted on to give good feedback.) So for their final rotation in the lab 5th grade has been engaged in video game design with Scratch.


We started by making some familiar games and adding new elements like timers, bonuses, lives, and power ups. They experimented with different ways of controlling sprites to find the best one for their designs. Game elements that they take for granted like scores and backgrounds resetting when a new game is started had to be coordinated. Several wanted to make 2 player games which provided a host of challenges to overcome.


The second part of the unit required them to make a game that teaches or provides practice for a skill. I deliberately left this requirement open so that students could follow their interests. For the most part it worked out, but I did get an unnatural number of math fact practice games, probably because it is something they have done before. Still, many branched out making American history quizzes, a piano playing memory game, German language trainers, and one curiosity that purports to teach good tooth brushing habits. A few projects are embedded into the post, but the studio can be found here. There is one more group of 5th graders who have not completed the unit, so there will be more games in the next couple of weeks.

Teaching Environmental Protection

Third grade's final project of the year centers on the environment, specifically what students can do to help keep it clean. They then had to develop a way to teach what they had learned to others, specifically regarding how, say a first grader, could contribute to solving the problem. I allowed them to have a bit of choice in their product selection. These choices included an interactive poster, a game (digital or physical), or a skit/song.


We started with a discussion of what exactly is meant by pollution and what problems it causes. This was also to outline the difference between solutions and practises available to all people (even students), and those that are for adults and businesses. In one class, the suggestion was made to buy electric cars, which I had to point out was probably beyond the ability of most elementary school students.

Some students worked on their own, but most worked with a partner. They took notes in a T-chart with "problem" on one side and "solution" on the other. As they conducted their research, I number of excellent questions came up. These included, how air pollution becomes water pollution, how plastic gets recycled, and which of the three R's is the best one to do. All of these questions gave the students the chance to dig deeper into the information to find the reasons why they should carry an reusable water bottle or pass on the straw at a restaurant.

The students created, as usual, a number of awesome projects. When the end of the unit came along, each group got to share their work with a visiting first grade class and receive feedback from other students. They reflected in their journals and in a Google form about their work and how it could be improved for future iterations.

Stepping up to Scratch

This rotation sees the second graders transition from programming in Scratch Jr. to programming in Scratch. This is a pretty big step. Scratch introduces students to concepts like coordinate pairs, negative numbers, and variables well before they are covered in math class. This is the second year that I have finished with second grade learning Scratch, and I have not been disappointed in how well they have handled the change. In addition to the upper grade math and the need for increased vocabulary (Scratch blocks have text on them, not images, to indicate their function), there is the sheer number of blocks the students now have at their disposal. Their natural curiosity leads them to try everything. This is fine, but it can quickly lead to frustration when they discover that they do not know how to undo the effects they have created with their experimentation. Still, by and large, the students have accepted the challenge with a wonderful enthusiasm. I am excited to see what they will be ready to make next year when they will have their own accounts and are able to participate in the Scratch community.

And on something of a personal note, my wife and I will be presenting a workshop at the Scratch Conference being put on by MIT this summer. Scratch was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and this conference brings together educators, developers, and researchers to discuss and collaborate. Work by a number of our Sinclair Superstars will be the focus of our workshop.

STEM Lab Menagerie

Here goes another post that must begin with the lament that I have fallen behind in my posting. So many amazing things have been happening in the lab. The 3rd grade learned how to use the Micro:bit and made their own Micro Pets. Second grade conducted research about different habitats and then built museum displays to share what they had learned. Meanwhile Kindergarten and 1st grade extended their programming skills with our friend Robo-Mouse. With this animal theme in mind, I've decided to consolidate these grade level units into one post and to vow, yet again, to stay on top off my writing schedule in this current grading cycle.

So let's begin at the beginning, Kindergarten and 1st grade worked with the Robo-Mouse, though they used the robot in different ways. Kinder learned to assemble the tiles to copy mazes from the task cards and then to program Robo-Mouse to navigate to the cheese at the end. As they became more proficient, they began creating their own mazes, recording these on grid paper, and recording their algorithms as well. They worked in groups that changed each day so that they could learn to work with different people and experience multiple perspectives. Teams built mazes to challenge other groups and learned a lot about debugging in the process.

Most of the first graders used Robo-Mouse last year and so only needed a short refresher lesson before they were ready to go. I started them on a series of building challenges related to their mazes. "Build a maze in which the robot must turn left 3 times to get to the cheese" and "build a maze in the shape of a letter" were just a couple of them. They also worked with the algorithm cards to plan their solutions before programming the robot. The cards are a big help when debugging programs for the long and winding mazes they like to build. Flexible groupings were an important part of the unit for 1st grade too as they created lengthy algorithms, often with multiple solutions. At the end of the unit with first grade I brought out Scratch Jr, which they had not used much in class yet this year. I challenged them to create mazes and then to write a program that guided the character through that maze. Touching the walls was not allowed, so they needed to run their code through many iteration before it worked perfectly.

On to second grade now. I started with an overview of note taking practises on Brain Pop Jr and a scavenger hunt for information on Britannica School. I am working on building them up to the point where they can choose how to share their learning at the end of a unit and part of that is helping them to become more independent learners. After learning to use these resources, teams selected a habitat and one of the animals from that habitat to be the topics of their research. They took notes in their journals and then planned what their display would look like. Then using everyone's favorite building material, cardboard, they executed their plans. As they were building, I made a point of teaching best practises for attaching pieces of cardboard to one another. (I have instituted a ban on tape in the lab, but that is a rant for another time.) Each display was accompanied by a card describing the habitat and listing facts about the animal. I was impressed by the attention to detail so many of the groups put into their projects. Another part of these sustained builds is helping students become better long term planners. I often see them hurrying to be done in a 45 minute class period which never results in the best work.

Finally, third grade was introduced to the Micro:bit. I've written about that in previous posts this year, so I won't go on about it again. I spent a lot of time this unit working on the differences between inputs and outputs. I likened it to cause and effect which they are familiar with from the ELA lessons. At first, we focused on using a particular input each day to create different outputs. They learned to use the buttons, accelerometer, and I/O pins to scroll text, create pictures, and show animations. We also got out the alligator clips and LEDs to do some physical computing which everyone found really exciting. The final project was creating a model pet with the Micro:bit adding a layer of interactivity to their builds. I was really excited to see all of the different was the different teams used the Micro:bit. On most it was the face or mouth showing the different moods of their creatures. Some learned to use the music blocks to add sounds to their animals and several used the Micro:bit to animate flapping wings and wagging tails. It was a fun unit to teach and I am really looking forward to next year when this group starts using the Raspberry Pi now that they have this grounding in physical computing.

Wrapping Up 2017, Looking Ahead to 2018

Happy 2018! I hope everyone is having a wonderful break. It has been great to have time to relax with friends and family, and hopefully you have been able to do the same. With all of the awesome things going on at the end of the year, my blogging fell by the wayside. Now it is time to get back on track!

During the second magnet rotation, the third grade took a bit of time to continue building their programming skills with Scratch. They were introduced to the Makey Makey input/output board. This device allows one to use conductive materials like Play Doh, paperclips, and even classmates as inputs for their programs.

Their main project however was to design, build, and present a tabletop cardboard arcade game. This project was inspired by Caine's Arcade, the wonderful story of a 9 year old boy who created his own arcade with cardboard boxes in front of his father's auto parts shop. Students worked in teams of 2 or 3 and started by brainstorming ideas for games and designs. From there they began building, testing, and improving. Many groups discovered that getting a game that has just the right amount of challenge was not as easy as they thought it would be. A great many groups learned that masking tape is not always the best choice for joining two pieces of cardboard. My personal favorite part of this project is watching students work through the design process on a personally meaningful project. each group is authentically invested in their game. That was evident at the conclusion of each unit when a first grade class (along with the administrative team) visited the lab to try the games. Students were so excited to talk about their work and have others try out their games. 

The 2nd grade classes spent this rotation working on a series of design challenges using a variety of materials. My focus for this unit was on the elements of the design cycle and on having students record their work in their journals. Each day they were assigned a particular task, build a bridge to span a distance with craft sticks, build an animal in its habitat with Legos. Some of these challenges were independent, while some involved teamwork. Some were deliberately quite advanced because I wanted to be able to teach students about the lessons of failure and the importance of perseverance. 

Kindergarten and first grade completed a unit of math stories. Each class started with a read aloud book and discussion. The books selected included "How Big is a Foot?", "Inch by Inch", "Two of Everything", and "The Greedy Triangle", just to name a few. Each book illustrates a particular math skill or concept which we discussed and connected to our classroom work. Following the reading, students worked on a project which allowed them to work with the math that played a part in the story. Students made input/output tables to show doubling, built pictures with different polygons, and measured the dimensions of birds that they drew. I personally enjoyed this unit because I love to emphasize to students the connection between math, science, and literacy.

Looking ahead to the 3rd magnet rotation starting next week (Yikes! Yay!), Kindergarten and first grade will be participating in a robotics unit. Second grade will be working on a research project, while 3rd grade will be introduced to the BBC Micro:bit board. The 4th graders will be working with electrical circuits. To start, they will use batteries and LEDs, but they will finish the unit with building programmable circuits using the Raspberry Pi computers. The fifth grade will be working on a history-based research project that will include interactive displays.

Check back in a few weeks to see how things are going. You are sure to be impressed with the amazing things the students make.

Made with Scratch, and with Scratch Jr.

For the final rotation of the year, I decided to introduce the 2nd graders to full size Scratch. I had done a few lessons with them using Scratch Jr. which is a programming tool for early readers. These lessons focused on how to use the various commands to create different movements and actions. The great successes the students had with Scratch Jr. led me the decision to take them to the next level. In doing so, I hope to have them ready to use Scratch as a means of expression in their work next year.

During the first week of the unit I had students work through the built in tutorial lessons found in Scratch. After a brief introduction to the user interface, drawing their attention to the various palettes and drawing tools, I set them to work on the "Animate your name" lesson. Students worked in partner groups as pair programmers, taking turns as drivers and navigators. This partner work helps by lending each project 2 sets of eyes to read the directions and to watch for mistakes. Over the next few days, the students made a number of different games that employed a variety of programming techniques including different kinds of loops and conditional statements.

The second week began with an introduction to using broadcasts to control the flow and action in the programs. I started with a whole group example program using a knock knock joke. In the program the sprites each say their portion of the joke at the appropriate time. This is accomplished by coding each statement the sprites say as separate script, each initiated by a broadcast. The first task I set the groups was to program a simple conversation. Many elected to copy the knock knock format, but others decided to try to create an original conversation. Keeping their broadcasts in order proved challenging to many students. As the conversations grew in length and complexity (thanks to the addition of more sprites), the number of broadcasts also grew. They worked on programming conversations and stories all week. There was some frustration when all of the sprites started talking over each other. However, there was a lot of excellent debugging practice as well. By the end of the week, most groups had succeeded in creating a story with conversations, movements, and scene changes. No two stories were alike, which is the most wonderful thing about Scratch, the amount of creative freedom students can have while still working on the same assignment.

As I had done with second grade, I also taught Scratch Jr. lessons to the kindergarten and first graders. The focus was on using the various tools and giving the students time to explore and experiment. During this final unit, I wanted to begin to teach them how to use Scratch Jr. to show what they have learned about a topic similar to what the 3rd and 4th graders have been doing. So each day we started by watching a Brain Pop Jr. movie about a different topic; parts of a plant, frog life cycles, the seasons, etc. and made some kind of illustrated foldable paper display for the information gathered. The next class, after reviewing the previous day's topic, student pairs then worked in Scratch Jr. to create a program that shared what they knew about that subject. I offered some guidance about getting started for each topic, but most of the creative choices were left to the students. They had to learn about drawing their own sprites and backgrounds. They also had to master the Scratch Jr. version of broadcasts to initiate scene changes and sprite conversations. The most truly wonderful part of watching the students work on their programs was the moment each day when a student made a discovery and called to his or her neighbor and said, "Look at this!". The neighbor would inevitably ask, "How did you do that?" at which point the first student would teach what they had learned. In this way, discoveries spread across the room from all directions like ripples in a pond.

In the end, I am so proud of the amazing work these young coders have done and I am so excited to see where they will take this learning next year.

Step Right Up to the Sinclair Cardboard Arcade!

Games are serious business in the STEM Lab. For the second rotation of the year, 4th and 5th grade students are extending the engineering skills they learned in our first unit by constructing a cardboard version of an arcade game. The inspiration for this came from the short film "Caine's Arcade" about a boy in Los Angeles who turned his father's used auto parts store into an arcade filled with games he built with scrap cardboard.

Students began by creating a design journal that will be used for the remainder of the year, as this and other upcoming projects will require extensive planning and notes. Furthermore, the journal will allow them to reflect on the work they have done over the course of the year. Next students discussed in groups the characteristics common to all games and these were recorded on an anchor chart. They noted that games should be fun, games require strategy and skill, they have moving parts, and that they should not be too hard or too easy.

At this point, students watched the "Caine's Arcade" movie and were introduced to the particulars of their design challenge. I showed them examples of real arcade games like one would see at Dave & Buster's as well as some homemade versions like those in the movie. I also shared with them some "half-baked" prototype games of my own. Mine were deliberately unfinished (half-baked) in order to facilitate a discussion about improving a first draft of a project.

With the guidelines and rubric in hand, student teams got to work planning their games. Diagrams were drawn, materials lists were created, rules were drafted. As construction began, I was most impressed to see how students persevered through challenges by working together and helping each other out. Not only did the teams work well, but students were eager to help other teams with construction problems and ideas for improvement. I was also happy to see students being more thoughtful about their use of materials so that very little waste was generated.

As Sinclair is a STEM magnet school with a communications focus, students finished up their projects by inviting another class to play their games. The 5th grade hosted Ms. Tritico's 2nd grade, and Ms. Flores' 4th grade hosted Ms. Salzman's 1st graders. The visitors were invited to leave feedback about the games they played. Several teams went over the top with their games giving out tickets and prizes which I thought was a nice touch.

Another thing going on in the lab this rotation is getting the 3rd - 5th grade students started working in Scratch. The 4th and 5th graders used Scratch last year to program games and create animations that illustrate science concepts. However, this year, the wonderful people at MIT (where Scratch was born) have created teacher and student accounts that facilitate all of us working together on projects. Below are a couple of games made by a 5th grader and a 4th grader, respectively. (Both use the left and right arrow keys to move the catcher. Press the green flag to start.)




Check back in a few weeks another STEM lab update. It will be about robots! Also, I will put up a slideshow of the amazing games created by the classes who have not been to the lab yet.