Bloomington Parks & Rec held their annual “Pumpkin Launch” (better known as punkin’ chunkin’) on October 26 at Monroe County Fairgrounds. They had 3 launchers this year, 2 long time participants and a newcomer (we tried to get some interest at SoE to build one, but were unsuccessful). There were several hundred people in attendance.

I had several activities available for people (mostly elementary).
They could make a butterfly from cardstock wings, craft stick, and pipe cleaner pieces.
There were a couple of mini catapults that they could launch.
Batteries & bulbs are always out. This time I added circuit blocks and they were a hit with the kids.

Orange County has a “Manufacturing Day” where they take 8th graders from the 3 schools to tour some local manufacturing facilities to see some STEM and career opportunities. This year they decided to add a couple of hours to get some more up close/hands on experiences like you might have at a conference vendor hall. One exhibitor had a VR goggle set for them to try, another a bottle filling machine, a third had a robot arm where they chose a box of candy and it picked it up and handed it to them. Groups rotated after 15-20 minutes.

I had 3 stations myself for the kids to spread out. The least “maker” of the station was rubberband cars where they experimented on how to get it to go the fastest/farthest. Another station was building a geodesic dome out of coffee stirrers & pipe cleaner pieces (you make rectangles and triangles – we eventually got 2 domes completed). The third station was paper circuits with coloring pages.

We set up 5 stations for 8th grade STEM class to get a sampling of STEM tools.
They recently got 3D pens for the FabLab and some micro:bits. I tweaked my ” micro:bit intro ” slides tutorial. We also had a Tinkercad station, some had already intro’d Tinkercad, so they didnt follow my beginner tutorial. We had a “craft” station to make “monsters” for Halloween starting with an oatmeal canister. The last station was 2D design with cuttle to laser cut a nametag/keychain (they have 2 XTool D1 and a big OMTech that we need to train some teachers/students on and create tutorials for).

We also spent some more time in the Linton-Stockton Fab Lab, discussing what it still needed and setting up 1 of the new 3D printers.

I will be doing an activity or two at Orange County’s Manufacturing Day for 8th graders. I thought if I could make some rubberband cars, they could race them and experiment with how to make them go faster/further.  (I also plan to have a geodesic dome building table and of course some batteries and bulbs)

Woodworking is tough without the proper tools, but I can sometimes borrow. I got some 1×6 wood at Black lumber (scraps). I was able to use the woodshop in the IU Musical Arts Center to rip it and chop it into appropriate size blocks. I really should have been ready to use their drill dress for the axle holes, but I didnt have the right size bits (and didnt check to see if they did).

Now I had to cut out the notch where the nail holds the rubberband to the axle. I used our Carvey, a small CNC router machine. It took a couple of minutes for each one.

The axles are 1/4″ and 3/8″ and the holes need to be larger than those, so I bought a drill bit set at harbor Freight that goes by 1/64th. The 1/4″ dowel hole was cut at 19/64 and the 3/8″ at 27/64. Since I am on a  deadline I need to do this by hand (really need to use a drill press). I made a little wooden guide to try to help me go straight…but I was not always successful.

I cut the dowels rods at about 7.5 mm for axles. I took the 3/8″ (rear) axles and found the center and used a jewelry had drill to create a pilot hole for the nail to attach the rubber band, then tapped a nail in.

The last hole is on top to hold a dowel rod which is the forward hold for the rubberband to stretch from.

I added some glue to the axles/wooden wheels.

I only had 24 of each wheel, so I 3D printed 4 other sets of wheels to get 16 cars (those these 4 have some cracks where the drill & wood were not cooperating). It took 45 minutes to print 2 fronts & 2 rear wheels on the Adventurer 5M

2″ wheels (24 for $20)

3/8″ x 12″ dowel rod (25 for $12  ) (used 4?)

1.25″ wheels (24 for $13.50  )

1/4″ dowel rods (25 for $8.50  ) (used 6)

30 grams of filament for 4 wheels (say 2.5 cents per gram x 4 sets of wheels)

Project cost : $20 + $1.92 + $13.50 + $2.04 + $3 ~ $40.46
(16 cars)
plus rubber bands (3.5″ for power ; 2.5″ for traction)

I got to work with some Kindergarteners to build a model of a playground that would be the center of their “community” learning. It was literally, the center of the map of their community. They talked about what was next to, nearby and around their community. They had to describe “where” the nearby things were on their map (above the playground, to the right). We also introduced the ideas of North, South, East, and West in the discussions.

They used toilet paper tubes, pipe cleaners, craft sticks, straws, coffee stirrers, play-dough, glue sticks, glue dots, and tape. They all had a variety of elements in their playground, like slide, swing, seesaw, zip lines, monkey bars.

We showed them 3D printing by printing an animal that they might find in their community. Each student chose from deer, squirrel and cat to place on their playground or their map. We printed it in the classroom so they could see how it happens. They will get to take it home when the project is done. I also laser cut some things (trees & animals) that I left for them to add when the parents see their work.

Makevention is a celebration/showcase of makers in the Bloomington area organized by Bloominglabs, a local makerspace. There were over 2 dozen exhibitors.

We had several things for people to choose from. We had a 3D printer going and were instructing people (kids & adults) on how it works. We had a butterfly making station (cardstock wings, craft stick, pipe cleaner pieces, glue dots), some necklace trinkets (butterfly, fairy, gnome), batteries & bulbs, PVC parts to do a random build, and string art (board, hammer, nails, string).

The morning started very slowly, but picked up after an hour or so, then was very busy until 3 pm. I would say we had at least 100 kids (elementary age) and 50 adults. Fun was had by all that attended.

I headed to Unionville elementary to work on some computer science concepts with the 4th grade. We had 4 days of about 45 minutes each. Day 1 & 2 were screen free, then 3 & 4 were with iPads.

We started with “graph paper” programming and how you would instruct someone to shade in the blocks as you have done (2 example grids)

Students used words. We got to talk about being very specific in directions, including making sure everyone knew the starting point . Some used the word “diagonal”, one labeled it like a spreadsheet (A,B,C,D across the top) and gave instructions like “shade A2, B1” , but forgot to tell us where 1 & 2 were. Then we stepped to using symbols instead of words, arrows in particular. They made their own and swapped instructions with a neighbor. The final exercise was a larger grid with Little Red Riding Hood, Grandmas house, and lots of wolves. They were to give directions for the shortest path.
{Graph Paper Programming ; Rescue Mission}

Day two we worked on binary alphabet, starting with changing the alphabet to numbers (1-26) and writing our name “in code”. We talked about ways that you could change that code, then what would we use for capital letters and numbers and punctuation. A few said to jump to 100’s for capital and 200’s for numbers and punctuation. One said to bold the numbers for capital, another said to write the number twice for capitals. We did have to talk about spacing so that we know what number is written :  1253 is very different from 1  25  3  or 12  5  3. We talked about our number system being “decimal” because we have 10 digits and some already knew about binary being for computers. We had examples of binary ideas, like yin & yang or the braille system or an electrical switch being on & off, which was a good segue to computers & binary. They wrote their name in binary then decoded a message on the handout…so we got to talk about the difference between “HELLO” and “hello”
We did not have time for them to use shapes and color for their initials, like binary bracelets

{binary alphabet}

Day 3 had us utilizing a scratch type of coding website to make designs (Playground MIT). They choose a new sprite, made it smaller, then code the “pen” blocks from the extensions. I made the silly mistake of having them use “when space bar is pressed” as an event trigger to clear the space and recenter – there is no space bar on an iPad. But it works if you just tap the code. I wanted them to have the sprite draw some shapes, starting with a square. Some took a while to grasp the idea that they needed more instructions in their code(more move & turn blocks), even though we physically did it – they told me how to walk in a square. I should have front loaded with more free play “make some designs” before getting to very specific shapes. Some jsut kept pushing the green flag to make a square or to make other designs. Their mind was blown when we grabbed the “repeat” block.
{Playground MIT art}

Day 4 was micro:bits and makecode. They had already done some work with micro:bits. I don’t love using an iPad and a micro:bit. The constant “pairing” to download new code, and some don’t want to pair…
I brought neopixel strips for them to light up. Yes, there was some difficulty in figuring out how to connect them to the micro:bit. There are many ways it can go wrong…. GND not connected to GND, Pin1 connected but code said Pin0. Sometimes in planning big things I forget the little things, like kids have never connected wires before. I need to figure out a better way to show them – whole class demonstration didnt work. Maybe bring one person from each group together and small group them. We eventually got everyone connected correctly. Luckily we could go over our time in order to get everyone successful at lighting up some lights.
{micro:bit intro}

I hope to be going back this year to build on what we have started.
Maybe we can gt them to design snowflakes in code, laser or 3D print them, then code lights for them….

The Children’s Festival at Peden Farms is a big event for local elementary school kids, mostly preK-2. There is a little bit of a farm tour, but mostly a whole variety of exhibitors. The one across form me was an electrical company talking about power lines. Near me were some baby chicks. I heard an array of animals that were brought in, like a donkey. I didnt get a chance to walk around, but I did notice some tables full of various furs, some corn grinding, and a well pump.

We had a 3D printer printing a pumpkin tchotchke, the pumpkin piano (makey-makey) and some butterfly making with cardstock wings, craft sticks, and pipe cleaners (and glue dots).

Tinkerfest is a one day event at the Indiana State Museum.
They bring in a bunch of STEM/Maker exhibitors that have different interactive things for families to experience. Hundreds of families come, many of them Girl Scouts.

We had a 3D printer going, and many people had questions about how those work. We had our PVC parts to build with, some necklace/bracelets trinkets and beads, pipe cleaners,batteries & bulbs, and some catapults to build/launch.

Community & School Partnerships brings JH students from across Indiana for a tour so they can see a college classroom, dorm, and dining hall. We start their morning off with a book that mentions many key places around campus (“Good Night Indiana University” ) and a #Maker experience. This year we are going with kits from TeacherGeek and they get to take the kits back to the classroom. They can be taken apart and remade or made into something else.