I went to Shakamak Elementary for a couple of afternoons to help get their new laser going. We also got the teacher started with TheNounProject  for images and cuttle for design. There were a few kids around for after school and they were enthralled with the laser in action. The teacher made a couple of keychains (cardboard, wood, acrylic) and of course all the kids wanted one.

I also got to meet the HS Graphics teacher who was in the graphics profession before becoming an educator. They have a large format printer that they utilize a bunch, as well as a Roland BN20 that they want help getting going on

I hope to be spending more time with them

(their school color is “Laker Blue”)

Last Tuesday, I went down to Leavenworth to the Purdue University Extension 4H office. They were just starting to set up their new Design and Innovation Studio. This will be utilized for some career/workforce development as well as getting kids in there for some skills and digital design work. They got some 3D printers, a laser cutter, some robot arms, and some micro:bit kits.
There is great potential for lots of collaboration.

Monday it was back to Lakeview Elementary to help with history. They are studying the 13 colonies, so I found an SVG map of the colonies (very similar to the one in their book) and did a bunch of tweaking to make it into a puzzle. We cut one for each table and they are to add images of important items for each colony (not sure we will get to lasering these, they might need to print pics & glue on)
(original file https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Thirteen_Colonies_1775.svg )

Tuesday after school was at Child’s. Today was bridge & tower building with craft sticks & playdough. Though playdough is not the best material to stick things together. We also needed a better way to test strength, hanging books with yarn didnt work so well. But the wind and earthquake test for towers was great.

Wednesday was meetings & grant proposal research.

Thursday night was a STEM night at North Daviess Elementary. I was there to help STEM teacher Tabitha with craft stick catapults. We were swamped for 1.5 hours with kids building & testing catapults. I didnt get any pictures.

On Friday, I was back to Linton Stockton to work with 8 students on Lego building/coding.

And that wrapped up the 12 days of running hither & thither.

There are many ways to carve pumpkins in a #MakerSpace.
Saw this on a front office desk.

This wood is cedar and the face is (probably) cut with a saw.
If you have a CNC router you could use that.
The top comes off to turn light on/off.
(I tend to use fence pickets for building, less expensive)

I was thinking how to do this with a laser.
You would use thinner wood, like 1/8″ or 1/4″.
You could design the box in makercase if you want finger joints
https://en.makercase.com/#/
It could be open or closed (thinking more the bottom)

Then I would take the svg into cuttle.xyz or tinkercad and carve the face.

But tinkercad resized the import….so you have to figure that out (what size are the parts, how big should the image be)
If you dont, the finger joints wont work

After carving, export an svg to cut
You need two more items.
1) a top rectangle that holds the stem
2) the stem

My box is 4″x2″, so I will make a rectangle smaller.
my wood is 1/8″ ,so I need a slot this size to hold the stem

Cut it on the laser and glue it all together (dont glue the top shut)

Get a tea light or string of fairy lights for it
(I need to order some fairy lights)

Saturday October 21st was the annual Pumpkin Launch sponsored by Bloomington Parks & Rec at the Fairgrounds. About 500 people attended the event. There were only 2 launchers this year, one that could launch up to 1000 feet and one family’s first attempt that could launch 40 feet. Hopefully next year we can get some schools to participate.

I had two mini catapults made out of PVC that could launch tennis balls. The little kids had fun with these. Since I didnt glue them, they kept coming apart. I had wanted them to be adjustable, but little kids are rough with things, so I should probably glue them. I also had a my tote of PVC parts out for kids to free build with. I was surprised that several kids built their own catapult based on my design. I also had  my tables of LEDs & batteries and  pipe cleaners and craft sticks

Sunday was Safe Trick or Treat night put on by the Fairgrounds. It was non stop families for 3 hours. We gave out over 1000 pieces of candy. We also had pipe cleaners for them to take home to build something. We had some trinkets to give out (3D printed/laser cut skulls, ghosts, pumpkins) , but they had to do some science first (light up an LED).

October 16 starts a busy 2 weeks, with something everyday.
Monday was a first visit to Lakeview Elementary to do some laser cutting with students. They only have iPads, so design options are limited. They had recently taken a field trip with a forestry expert, so we had them find an SVG representing some of the trees they learned about. We were going to use The Noun Project, but after getting an account they got a “403 forbidden” message, so we jsut used google search. Somehow, if they went to the noun project from there, it worked. One sticking point we had is kids kept getting PNG or JPG (because of time constraintsI didnt want to engrave, I wanted to score & cut). They had to email the image to me as an attachment. So 20 students learned several things : finding an svg, emailing, AND some images arent good to cut, as some pieces get cut off (I put some of them inside a circle and scored them like an ornament).

Tuesday I went to Area 31 in Indianapolis for “Build Your Future Girls Construction Camp”. They are having camp all week with a dozen or so MS girls. The morning is some talks about construction professions and a couple of build projects. This day was string art and snap circuits. The afternoon is a field trip to a job site. I think today was a house building site.

Tuesday was also a first visit to Childs Elementary for afterschool with 25 learners (and 3 teachers and 2 high school helpers). They are using some of the BYF kits to do some intro to professions but really to get the kids building something. It just so happened that they were working with the snap circuit kits today.

Wednesday was a variety of meetings about projects and grants

Thursday had me visiting 2 schools. In the afternoon I went to Lawrence County Independent Schools to help with a STEM class. A dozen students were finishing up some paper mache masks for a Fall Festival. The most important thing I did was help 2 students get the slingshot on their pumpkin launcher and test it out. It worked great for small pumpkins (or those large nuts that fall from the trees this time of year.

Lakeview STEM club was Thursday after school. We had 15 3rd/4th graders. We took a walk on their trail through the woods, measuring distances between key places, noting waypoints (coordinates) of these key places. We will be making a map of the trail in an upcoming session

Friday was two schools also. The morning had me at Linton Stockton to help 8 4th/5th graders get started with their Lego Spike Prime Robotics kit. We just looked at the I/O parts, not the building pieces. Each student took a turn coding one or two of the I/O devices.

Then I was off to Lawrence County Independent School for their Fall Festival. I set up 2 tables, one with a 3D printer going and LED & batteries. The other table had pipe cleaners and craft sticks to build with. Dozens of kids came by to build or light up a light or see the 3D printer.

I like the iPad for many things.

But coding is not one of them.

An elementary teacher has 10 Circuit Playground Express. But the students have iPads. I have not found a way to do block coding (like makecode) with this combination.

I like turtle art for a coding exercise and there are a couple of browser based versions.
So let us try that.
https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/
I can touch on blocks and the description of them pops up. But I cannot drag them to code.
I tried Safari & Chrome.
Though the movement blocks do show what the commands will do (the turtle does  that motion, as in it moves forward when you press “forward”

The other one I like is https://pencilcode.net/edit/first
This one I CAN actually drag the blocks and do the coding in Safari and Chrome.
The flaw is that when I “save” image (when using Chrome) and look at it (to print for kids) , the image is pixelated.
Using Safari, I cant get to “save image”… I have to use fingers to zoom in and take an actual screenshot (which has the grid in it)

So, I was a little disappointed today.

I went to Linton-Stockton High School this week to see their NearSpace Education balloon launch (& help if they needed). They did recover the payloads somewhere around Salem, in a tree of course. I will be back there soon to see the data that they gathered. It will be interesting to see if this is a cost effective way to gather data and engage students.
I was surprised how thin the tethers lines are and how small the metal clasps connecting them are.
Some pics & launch video :

video

You can make your own jigsaw puzzles with a laser cutter.
I found a couple of websites that allow you to customize pieces a little :

https://puzzle.telegnom.org/

https://draradech.github.io/jigsaw/index.html

The second one adds rounded corners to the first one, as well as an option for a hexagonal/circular pieces (with hex shaped pieces).

And of course cuttle has a template
https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Jigsaw-Puzzle-dBp9WrbQX1sj

You could always just find the svg of your liking and size it to your puzzle

A) photo
1) print a picture on paper and cut it out
2) use modge podge to glue it to some cardboard.
3) make the puzzle and downloaded the svg
4) put the picture with cardboard backing into the laser
5) upload the svg to laser software
6) line things up and cut       

b) laser engrave a file then cut puzzle
1) get a file to score or engrave in your design software
2) make the puzzle to the size you need & download
3) import puzzle and overlay onto engrave image
4) adjust colors/settings as needed
5) export svg 
6) import to laser software & cut
7) maybe use paper/cardstock to take out of the laser to keep together??

I probably should have engraved instead of scored

We were part of the MCCSC STEAM night at the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship on October 3rd. About 200 people attended the event and 25-30 that stop by our tables

We did stomp rockets and the young family members were excited to build, launch and sometimes chase their rocket because it landed upstairs
(we also had batteries & bulbs and PVC parts, but stomp rockets were the most interesting)