The Hoosiers Association of Science Teachers (HASTI) annual meeting was Feb12-14 in Indianapolis (#HASTI23). It was actually combined with ICTM (Indiana Council of Teachers of Mathematics). It was your traditional conference setup… lots of session choices available in each time slot (8-10) and a vendor hall. Having Mathematics and Science in the same place gave some an opportunity to explore the natural crossover (and some of us are already both). There was a good variety of topics for the sessions, not very much Maker, but some STEM & PBL & Design Thinking. There were 2 field trips available one day, the Cadaver Lab and the Zoo. There was a time slot on day 3 dedicated for “Unconference” session by grade bands and those rooms were full.

The Keynote/lunch on Day 2, Crystal Morton, kept getting interrupted with a malfunctioning fire alarm. Day 3 keynote and lunch had better luck, and we got to learn about whales.

There are a few things that I want to research more. The Imagination Lab in Plainfield schools sounds interesting. NASA resources( one of many sites ) are always good to revisit. Children’s Museum of Indy might have some resource ideas. NearSpace Education and NearSpace Launch ideas for launching sensors and gathering data is always exciting. I also need to add the NASA foam rocket to the rocket folder.

One way to help build that #MakerMindset is to give learners many options for being creative. A Lego wall is one way to do that. It could be in your room or in the hall. It could be “permanent” or portable. Dr. Jacie Maslyk, a Pittsburgh are educator, writes a nice post about how to do this.

https://carlyandadam.com/thecarlyandadam/how-to-set-up-a-lego-wall-for-your-stem-classroom

There are other “walls” that you could develop :

Lite Brite (colored golf tees or pool noodles or colored acrylic rods)

Marble run

Magna tiles

Coloring (yes, literally a large print out of a coloring page)

Graffiti

Doodle

Gears

Just give students places and opportunities to try things out, to express themselves.
They are also great brain breaks.
What other “walls” can you think of?
Maybe your “wall” is the sidewalk or driveway with sidewalk chalk.

I need to work on designing & creating a gear wall, then share that out.
It is on my “todo” list.

The City of Bloomington has some events for Black History Month and we are working with them on some things. Thought we would fidget with the logo and hashtag to laser cut/3D print some items to see what works and might be useful.

Reminder : not all fonts laser cut well.

Here is a great article about Maker Centered Learning (aka #MakerEd) and the need for #MakerSpaces and #MakerMindset

https://www.nsba.org/ASBJ/2023/february/maker-space

We have 2 Brother GX37 sewing machines on the van, so I wanted to do a beginner project for using them. I decided to make a couple of throw pillows , around 20″x20″.

I went to JoAnn Fabrics to get some clearance material ($3 per yard – 42″ wide) (got the end of a bolt – even more sale)  and some PolyFil ($25/5 pounds).Yes, I got 5 pounds of fill, NOT that I expected to use that much for 2 pillows. There might be future uses.

I cut off 22″ so I would have a 22″x42″ rectangle. I folded it over so that it was inside out. I put some pins in to hold the fabric in place and started with a straight stitch. After the first few , I pressed the reverse button , because that is what I have heard to do. When I get to a pin I pull it out and continue down the fabric and reverse a little at the end. Then I decided to do a second stitch, a zigzag, next to the straight. It just seemed like a good idea, two stitches better than one (i hope). Turn my fabric around, pin the other side and repeat the sewing

On the first pillow, I decided to stuff it before the final seam. It did make sewing the whole seam a little difficult and I missed a couple of places. With the second pillow, I sewed most of that final seam, then stuffed the pillow. finally I closed it off.

I left the settings for stitch length / width and tension at 3 on the machine

The hard parts to get better at/more comfortable with :

going straight

threading the thread and needle (this machine has a needle assist)

feeding the bottom bobbin correctly

37 stitches???

How do you promote making a variety of items on your tools so students can learn the various nuances of the tool?

GlowForge recently tweeted a “Bingo” board which really could be used for more than just laser projects (with a few tweaks):

Not that it is a difficult thing to create, but I found “BingoBaker” website to generate bingo cards…and they had some maker ones (gr1-3   ;  makerspaces  )

Do you have a “Choice Board” for your tools or projects?
I remember Shannon McClintock Miller had a couple on her “Virtual MakerSpace” , like a “Coding Choice“

It is difficult to know what to make if you don’t know what you can make…so we need to give learners ideas to explore (not necessarily a step by step Instructable).

  Alasdair Massie

Gears – such an important part of everyday life…involved in many machines.

At their simplest, they increase/decrease torque or speed or change direction of motion.

I think every school building should have a gear wall so students can experiment and get their hands on gears. If you have a laser cutter or 3D printer, you can make your own. There are a couple of nice sites to explore gear design :

a) Gear Generator is awesome for designing and combining and animating gears—but there is a cost to download files.

b) Evolvent Design lets you design and download svg or dxf. They also teach a little about the number

c) Barry S has created a cuttle.xyz file to generate gears. You can download an svg

d) Wood Gears allows you to design and print out on paper…like to cut out by hand

e) Engineers Edge lets you design and download svg or dxf — they also teach a little about the numbers

f) Jerome Leary webpage lets you design and download a dxf

There is a neat website that lets you draw with your finger/mouse a “circle” and a gear show up http://www.gearsket.ch/

There is one very important thing about all the numbers associated with gears.  If you want the gears to mesh, the Module has to be the same. It is associated with the linear density of the teeth, so the size of the teeth. The angle also has to be the same if they allow you to input that.
I have most often seen 20 degrees.
Number of teeth is always one of the input variables.
If you need to know how big your gear will be, it is approximately the Module times the Number of Teeth. Approximately because that diameter is actually about halfway up/down the teeth, at the mesh point of another gear

My Module 2.5, 40 tooth gear is about 100 mm in diameter (actual d = 105 mm)
My Module 2.5, 20 tooth gear is about 50 mm in diameter (actual d = 55 mm)

So figure out a way to mount some gears…like a peg board wall , and make some gears.

Students need to sketch ideas on paper, some rough draft of a drawing. It doesnt need to be pretty, but they need to visualize ideas, even add some notes or locations of specific features. Pencil and paper.Some are good with golf pencils , some need full size.  Okay, some kids like pen. Often I use whatever is handy. I do prefer an unlined page of some sort. Some kids like lines. Everyone prefers a different size paper and a different size drawing. I have been amazed at how small some kids could draw. I have seen classes where students have journals / sketchbooks / Engineering notebooks of various styles blank/lined/grid (ideas A  B  C). Some makers like to have a large roll of white paper in the space so people can go any size. After that rough idea is down, they could use colored pencils/crayons to add some flare or details. Maybe next, try some blue paper and white pencils/crayons. Somehow that color shift just changes our mindset.
       

They don’t have to freehand everything. You should also have some drawing tools. Rulers are an obvious choice for a tool, especially since it has two functions, measuring and straightedge. A variety of drawing templates are also nice to have. There are so many options (if you have a laser cutter you could make your own…even a Cricut could cut some thinner plastic to make your won). The Splat 3D Geometric Drawing Tool is a nice one to try out. Protractors and compasses (geometric ones) are good to have available. Recently this Multifunctional Geometric Ruler has popped up.

MEASURING!!!
Kids need to measure stuff so they get used to “how big” something is in order for them to design correctly. So you need to have lots of rulers and measuring tapes, and even digital or plastic calipers around for them to use….and opportunities for them to use them. You should probably also have some digital scales for mass/weight.

If you have whiteboard or glass walls, those are great for designs also. You can buy a 4×8′ sheet of flat/solid white bathroom paneling at a home improvement store and put them up whole or cut them into pieces for individuals groups. Pick a size you like, though I wouldn’t go bigger than 24″x32″. Also, you might want to round off the corners. Have you found a brand of whiteboard markers that work best? (June Gold    ; ShuttleArt    ; EXPO ). I hate having to pay $1 per marker. You do know that wet erase markers also work…you just have to “wet erase” everytime.

As in Cricut Joy. We recently purchased 2 of these for about $130 each (obviously you should shop for bundles on sale). They are small format (4.5″x6.5″ media) printer-cutters that work via Bluetooth and the Cricut Design Space App.

I used the Mac in the MILL to cut something on one and my iPad with the other to cut something. Both worked pretty easily.
I could see where Bluetooth connection could be a problem for some schools/devices. We will see when I take them out into the field. There is no corded option for the Joy.

Now what accessories do you want to add… more pens, a case for 4.5″x6.5″ vinyl…
Don’t forget transfer tape.
I am thinking a good cutter to cut cardstock & vinyl to size.

so, if the score lines don’t show really well, you can “double them up” or create an offset duplicate text…

Some softwares have “offset”
cuttle.xyz has “Linear repeat” under “Modify”
I repeated the text, then displaced it by 0.01.

I think it shows up a little better.
The top is with Linear Repeat (bottom is original single score line)
Though acrylic might not be the best medium for this idea.