We are doing an #EarthDay2023 event in a couple of weeks. I was cutting some butterflies & bees out of wood for kids to color/paint when i thought about a smaller version for earrings. I shrunk one of the butterflies down to 1″x1.5″.
  and

Then I thought of “options”.

The blue I had being scored…but I could also cut it out or fill it in and engrave it.
If I engrave it, what settings do I want to use..same for all circles or different.
I put the smallest ones as black to do them differently (glowforge separates different colors).

I know it is difficult to tell in the picture…. top left is scored, bottom left is engraved, bottom right is cut out.
Here is individually ( i need a camera other than phone…)
(score                                         engrave                                             cut)

When you make small butterflies, the antennae are a problem. I broke a couple.

Two things I do not know yet… is the hole big enough for a ring and is it in the right place so it wont break off easily. Now I need to get some earring parts.

My cuttle files :

https://cuttle.xyz/@makervan/butterfly3earring-wYkP8Ht0iFGv

https://cuttle.xyz/@makervan/butterfly3earringEngrave-PK0YF9Rjzify

I imported an svg from thenounproject.com and added the circles on the wings

We participated in McCormick’s Creek Elementary School STEAM night.
We brought stomp rockets (here is our template).
To save time, you can tape the top closed instead of cutting, rolling and taping a nosecone.
A half-litre or 20 ounce bottle is enough air to reach almost to the gym ceiling

It was a pretty busy night. We had at least 50 pre-schoolers through middle school age stopping by. Some just wanted to launch rockets, some would make their own.

It was a successful evening.
Though some middle school boys took a while to figure out that stomping on a flat bottle doesnt do anything…they did figure it out eventually.

There are two, micro:bit  based robotic building kits that I have looked at recently. The micro:bit is a $20-$30 micro-controller, depending on where you buy it (adafruit). One is the Brown Dog Gadgets Bit Board Rover. The other is Elecfreaks 32in1 Wonder Building Kit. I bought my BDG on kickstarter and my Elecfreaks on amazon. BDG & Elecfreaks both have a variety of nice items for STEM/coding & robotics.

They both have tutorials/instructions for building and coding different contraptions (BDG ; Elecfreaks) (let me know which one you think has better instructions).
Elecfreaks has a makecode extension (extra set of blocks) specifically for their expansion board. Brown Dog Gadgets uses the basic makecode set, but you need to get extensions when you use the distance sensor and neopixels.

-I like that BDG included neopixels & thumbstick & a pen holder for drawing.
-I don’t love the water level sensor in the Elecfreaks, but can understand them wanting a variety of ideas beyond things that move in various ways.
-The BDG brick adapters (3D printed and laser cut) are nice , Elecfreaks includes some screws to help with this
-Number of parts can be misleading because there could be lots of tiny connectors, but that is not the case. Elecfreaks definitely has more parts.
-I think the servo and motors in the Elecfreaks kit are supposed to be stronger, but I have not played enough to tell.
-The expansion boards are both about $30. I like that the Wukong has a rechargeable Li battery. The BitBoard is neat that it connects to Lego and you can use makertape laid on the Lego nubs to make circuit connections (you could also use alligator clips). They have some differences in their features that need further explored.

Which do you like?
I was waiting to mention.
One kit costs $90 and the other $180.

By the way, I am always a fan of buying things individually to get what you want…if the price doesnt get too outrageous. Buy the board you want, buy the I/O devices you want,, find the building pieces you want…buying in bulk (for a class/lab set) can brings prices down.

Or sometimes you buy a kit, then augment. For example, I would like another servo or two and a neopixel ring/strip and a thumbstick or IR distance sensor (slightly different than the line followers) for the Elecfreaks kit. For the BDG kit I would add another servo and IR distance sensor. I also like OLED and 1602LCD for displays and arcade buttons for inputs. Sometimes I shop amazon, sometimes China (with long lead times)

Don’t ignore Dollar Tree as a materials supplier. They have much more available on their website, though you have to buy in bulk from there. Each product is a different amount, 24, 36, 48…
Sometimes you can’t do it cheaper or the time to make it would be too much.

For example, this set of birds or owls… you get 2 of each of the 3 designs in a $1.25 pack. You have to buy in chunks of 36 ($45)
Pay close attention to the sizes of items.

I did find these butterflies & bees at the store.
5 in a pack for $1.25.
One side is chalkboard, other is wood.

There is a way to get more than the 3 font options in Tinkercad.
Here is a great Instructables  and I made a short video based on it.

Basically :
1) download a font file (free ones obviously)
(here is one possible site)

2) convert the .otf (open the zip to get at that) to a .svg
(great converter site)
download that

3) in Tinkercad, get to Shape generators, show all, show more

scroll down to the “TEXT” option and drag that onto the workplane

this is a “custom font text” option, not the regular one

Drag the svg or choose it

It should create a new font that is only good for this ONE file if you DONT DELETE the text box

Last week we went to The Club at Crosspoint, a co-working space in Fishers, for the Launch(ed) Women in Technology Conference. The conference is hosted by Indiana University President Pamela Whitten and offers opportunities for middle school girls to learn, explore and interact with innovations, tech products, and STEAM professionals. About 200 young ladies attended. They had some awesome finger food while they got to wander around various STEAM booths, talk to people and get their hands on some tech tools.

The Girl Scouts were there with cubelet robotics. HSE High School Girls Who Code had a variety of physical computing models to work with. SMC Corporation had a table top pneumatic machine running that would pick up a Starbust and transport it down the assembly line and back. Recovery Force demonstrated a wearable compression device to aid mobility. You could play a “Math Hoops” game with the Indiana Pacers. If you stopped by the Lift Academy table, you got to try out a flight simulator. You could make a wearable light up pin with Ignite Studio (Hamilton East Public Library).  Knowledge Services talked about the various aspects of Cyber Security. Spokenote demonstrated their recording service/app.

We had an assortment of things. We had LED’s and batteries to figure out how to light up. We had plastic cups and a variety of designs that learners could pin prick into the cup. A light can be placed in the cup (or it over a lamp) to illuminate the pattern. We also had some pieces of PVC and connectors to build “something”. One of the most popular things we have is string art, where the participants have to use a hammer to put nails or drill to put screws into a board to wrap string around. We really need to figure out more events to get power tools into the hands of Middle School (and younger) learners.

After they got an hour to go around, we headed to the auditorium. There they heard from IU President Pamela Whitten, the first woman to serve as University President. President Whitten also sat down for a conversation with IU Junior Brooke Wyatt to discuss women entrepreneurs. Brooke launched a fashion boutique her junior year of high school.

Next, it was time for even more wild excitement – The Design Challenge. We went to the cafeteria area where students formed teams with the goal of building a prototype of something to help someone. There were a variety of materials to use, from cardboard to pom poms. It seemed liked the most popular thing was using the Zip Snip to cut the cardboard. After finishing, the teams recorded their specific goal and process and thoughts.

We got a wide variety of inventions
Some help pets

hold phones

paint nails

pick up trash from roads and sidewalks

pencil sharpener, lead or eraser dispenser

a to-do countdown timer

a litter bot

a math homework helper (screenreader and gets you resources)

a jewelry box

a wallet that opens by fingerprint…and if it is the wrong fingerprint, there is a taser feature. If you lose it, there is an embedded tracker.

walking cane with built in sensors

a robotic storage locker that follows you

something for Roblox

Yard cleaner (dog/goose poop, acorns, leaves…)

something to prevent callouses and blisters

toilet paper dispenser

portable/flexible drink coasters

a bear to help with anxiety (heart rate monitor, breathing check, warming pad…)

a roller device to remove things (hair,fur, burs) stuck to clothes
(didnt get a picture, sorry)

On Feb 27, we went down to Jasper to the Southern Indiana Education Center to do some #MakerEd #MakerSpace training with about 2 dozen educators.

All tables had a pile of stuff to create with, and the assignment was “make something”.
We gave them about an hour to create. We went around the room, chatting with everyone as they made, sharing ideas and thoughts. Some people helped each other with ideas because Maker is naturally collaborative. A few people shared what they made and its significance (to them or their class)

The rest of the morning was talking about Maker ideas, asking and getting questions about MakerEd and MakerSpaces and scheduling and optimizing use.

After lunch was hands on time. We had the 3D printers there and one person and their colleague created and printed their first ever print (nametag). The laser cutter was available and people were around it, discussing ideas and checking it out, though no one cut anything. We also had some coding/robotics things for people to play with, like makey-makey, sphero, and micro:bits.

Then it was time for summary/wrap up. Everyone felt like they had taken at least one step forward in their understanding and had an idea of something to implement.

Hopefully we will be doing many more of these sessions.

In 2020, we were all looking for remote/virtual things for our students to do. With the help of my Twitter friends, I compiled a list of ~80 sites where students can design & create a variety of things. There are coding sites, virtual robotic environments, picture editing, drawing, vector graphics, audio recording, avatar creation, music making, math, circuits, gears…These are all browser based.

Give them a look.

I have not checked the links in a year or so, please let me know if there are broken ones or new sites that I should add.

VirtualMakerSpace spreadsheet

We rotated through 5 Kindergarten classes (~30 minute each) at Linton-Stockton Elementary to explore ideas of why things sink/float. We asked “why things sink (or float)…” and there were lots of good ideas about “heavy” and “light” and “big” and “gravity” and “pushing up”. One young scientist said that the water was heavier than the boat (for floating), which is pretty darn close to the Physics.

We used some 6 qt totes at each station and added about a half gallon of water. We gave them a variety of objects to touch and hold : popsicle sticks, Lincoln Log, plastic wheel, plastic flower petal, plastic bear, nail, bolt, wing nut, spacer, playdough, crayon, penny. Their task was to predict if they thought the items would sink or float, then put them in a sink pile and a float pile. Now came time to test, and we did 1 item at a time from one of the piles (kinda). After two or three minutes of discussions, questions, ponderings… we did the other pile. We asked if anybody got every item correct , were they surprised by any item, discussed what kinds of things were at the bottom and what kids were at the top of the water.

After the first class, I decided to do the playdough separately, after the two piles. So a ball of playdough sank for everyone (some predicted correctly, some did not). I said I could make playdough float….if I changed the shape. So we all tried to make a bowl shape out of our playdough. It worked for some of us, some it did not…those sides are tricky. Especially with wet playdough.

We gave everyone a piece of aluminum foil, about 12″x12″ (roughly square), and asked them to shape it into a boat. As you can expect, some did a wonderful job folding and bending it, some needed a little help. Almost all got their shape to float. The real test though, was how many pennies could it hold. They had to take turns adding pennies to their boat and count how many until it started sinking.

The playdough and the foil boat were the messiest parts of this activity. Wet playdough gets all over our hands (& the table). Taking the foil boat in and out of the water to test it gets water all over the table. The teachers and I spent a good amount of effort getting paper towels around to everyone.

I also had an origami boat activity ready, but we had used up our 30 minute block of time. One teacher tried it with the kids after I went to another room , and had a few successes. I used 8.5″ x 8.5″ paper (i didnt think to order origami paper so i cut regular paper “square”)  It came from this video

A messy and successful day.

I am going to work with some kindergarten kids on “sink & float” because they are doing some content that is about boat voyages. We will give them a variety of items to conjecture then test whether they sink or float. We will try making a foil “boat” to hold some pennies and see how many pennies they can hold. THEN we will try to make an origami boat…I have not figured out the best origami for that yet (I have done almost no origami, so a new learning experience).

I thought to make some “boats” with digital tools as examples and maybe we will test how many pennies they hold. They are actually just small boxes without tops to keep the shapes simple. I designed a 60 mm x 35 mm x 16 mm boat in tinkercad (I forget why I did 16 vs 15???) A rectangular prism with a rectangular prism hole cut out. Remember, in order to have 3 mm thick sides, the hole has to be 6 mm smaller (3 for each side). I raised the hole up 3 mm to get the bottom of the hull.

I also designed the same shape in makercase to laser cut.

I cut some out of cardboard, wood, and 2 different acrylics using the same file.
The kerf adjustment (accounting for thickness of laser beam on the cut) had different effect because all of them are slightly different in thickness. The wood and 1 acrylic had to be tapped together using a hammer. The other acrylic falls apart, then I realized they are 2 different manufacturers. Obviously I have to get better at kerf adjustment, and it should be done with one material in mind. I think I will “paint” the wood one with water resistant wood glue to seal up some gaps in edges and help it to not absorb water. The acrylics I am thinking super glue.

The 3D printed ones took an hour
The cardboard lasered in 1 minute
The wood and acrylics took 1:40 – 1:50 (minutes)

I also did a cylinder to hold the same volume to see if kids predict fewer or more pennies…but then decided to mix the media and shorten build time. I 3D printed the sides but laser cut the bottom. That is a 20 minute print and 30 second laser cut. I used cuttle for the circle svg. When the 50 mm circle gets laser cut, it is about 49.7 mm (i was wondering if the GlowForge laser cut outside, on , or inside the line – some laser cutters you can tell it where to cut).
 

I will try super glue to connect them.

I did make a mistake with these. I was originally going to make the circle bottom be inside the 3D printed ring…but I changed up to have the ring attach on top of the circle base…which makes my ring 3 mm taller than the other objects, so NOT the same volume.