I was invited to do an activity for Washington Community 4th & 5th graders at their STEM Day. Others that were there had different robotics and the Woods on Wheels trailer that had demos about forests. I brought paper circuits (which, in hindsight, might not have been the smartest move…we were outside and it was a windy day and the copper tape trash kept blowing all over the tennis courts – but the kids were great at helping to pick up the trash)
I created a card with the map of Indiana and a star for Indianapolis and another for Washington Community.

We had 6 classes that rotated through 45 minute stations. There were about 175 students.
It was fast & furious and 45 minutes was not enough time for most kids to get finished.

I made an instruction page…

One of the simple activities that many elementary age students like is building with PVC. We have a tote of pipes and a bucket of connectors. So we are training plumbers 😉
(I probably need to get more pipe)

This was one of the activities we had recently at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence County. The other was rubber band cars (& I didnt get pictures) . We had 30 students this afternoon.

East Crawford 4th graders were talking about senses in science class. So we thought a little “Dr. Frankenstein” would be good. We had a little random science Q&A to start, then worked it towards robotics and how they function (sense, think, act), then animals and how they survive. The challenge was to create a model of a robot/animal hybrid that had something “extra” for their senses to help them better survive. We had the cardboard tools and all the craft materials laid out. After a quick tool discussion (all tools can hurt you), they got to work creating. 

The students had to describe what/how they augmented at least one sense.

We were also at the school for the 5th graders. We did paper circuits with them. Obviously we started with “battery & bulb” for them to explore. The we talked about circuits and had them do the “simple-series-parallel” page

Much help was provided by the ladies of Crawford 4H. It is so much easier when there are helpers!

We spent a Saturday at the Orleans Public Library doing paper circuits.
About a dozen people came in.
We had a variety of options of pre-printed cards to color and light up.

These are the images. They were sized to take up half a sheet of paper, so it could be folded as a “card” with the pictures on the outside.Then we made a paper circuit on the inside.

Unionville Elementary School had to re-schedule there Earth Day Celebration/Carnival/Fundraiser for May. They have lots of games for kids to play and many booths from local organizations like me. I saw some geodes, there was a station to sift through a bag of “dirt” (like mining) to find cool rocks (that were placed in there). The library was there as well as a local bakery. You could make a bag out of t-shirts. There was also a silent raffle and a 50/50. There were several hundred people in attendance.

I brought a couple of things. Being Earth Day celebration, I had paper pots to make , potting soil , and seeds to start in them and butterfly making (Cricut cut wings, craft stick body, pipe cleaner antennae). I also had some necklace making with laser cut trinkets.

We held a 4 day Vex Robocamp for 46 middle school kids. Some had 0 experience, some had been in competitions. One-third of attendees were girls. We borrowed kits from Binford, University and Tri-North and purchased a few IQ kits as spares and for future use in the Maker Van. We started with some design challenges/team building projects (floppy tower with pipe cleaners and cardboard rubberband car). Then we rotated through sessions to get them all acquainted with the kits, Vex coding/VR Vex, and the Stretchbot they would all build.
          

We started with building the drive train and had some challenges with that (maze, slalom, obstacle course). Everyone had to take their turn driving. Then they build the grabbers, and experimented with it. Then they built the lifter for the grabbers. They practiced  in the rooms grabbing & lifting with some of the game pieces, then they went to a game field. Some tweaks were made after getting on the field.

One of the local teams brought a couple of their big competition bots for show & tell. 

I am always looking for STEM/Maker ideas, especially for littles. I came across this “straw flyer” on Instructables ( https://www.instructables.com/Straw-Flyers/ )

It requires 3 or 4 straws, 2 strips of paper (different lengths) and some tape/glue dots. You could use card stock to give it a little more weight, but paper worked okay as our first attempt (always an experiment). The most important part for good flight is to evenly space your straws…and have them all “straight”
(I cant say parallel… technically, they are not because of the different size circles)

1) Make circles with the strips of paper/card stock
2) Tape the straws to them
the instructions show taping on the inside of the big circle and outside of the smaller circle….but experiment – most importantly get them “STRAIGHT” with each other
3) hold one of the straws and throw

There is definitely a “forward” / “front end”.

It is good to have different colored straws. Since we probably didnt put them all on perfectly, holding/throwing one of the 3 or 4 will work better than the others. Having different colored ones lets us keep track of that.

You can throw it over hand, under hand, side arm –

Now, many of the younger kids have not had much experience with tape or glue dots, so they will struggle with those and need help. One kid basically made a stick out of 3 straws and 2 circles (wrapped the circles around the straws then wrapped tape around that).

I only remembered to get one picture…

(also found a QTip flyer that I have not tried yet ; Qtip, strips of paper, tape)

I am going to attempt to do tie dye with a STEM camp.
Back in the old days, we used to make buckets of dye and dip them in.
Nowadays, you use squirt bottles.

Most of the instructions I found boiled down to :

cotton/mostly cotton

Prewash

Dye wet

wrap/fold/scrunch as desired

Rubber bands

squirt dye where you want it – soak it

Let set 24 hrs in plastic bag (gallon baggie)

labels for names on bag (masking tape)

Rinse cold 1st with rubberbands on, then remove and rinse til clear

Plastic bag to take home

Wash alone or with old towel for a few washes
(this is one of the resources https://www.cantonpl.org/blogs/post/everything-you-need-to-know-for-tie-dying-at-home/ )

materials :
Gloves
Dye
squirt Bottles
Rubber bands
gallon Baggies
Plastic table cloths/garbage bags (protect surface)
rags
aprons?

I got a couple of white cotton t-shirts and a tie dye kit (this one has 18 different colors, premixed in bottles and is supposed to do 36 projects)(another good brand HTVront). I pre-washed (and dried), brought it to school and got it damp. Then picked a few colors out and added water to those bottles. I found this website ( https://sarahmaker.com/tie-dye-patterns/ ) that talks about different ways to wrap/twist/fold your garment.

I attempted sunburst
 

this is the front and the back

And here is the spiral
 

front and back

I rinsed each out for a few minutes and wrung them out…but they still had some dye & water in them, enough to drip on the floor. So I rinsed the dye out a little more.

I think they came out fine, though I should be more careful with dyes at the beginning…i got some drops into areas of another color.
I also need to find a thinner t-shirt material. These are a bit thick/heavy.
What are your tie dye stories?

Linton Stockton launched their third balloon in May.
They had 4 experiments attached. One with 3 color filters to see if a micro:bit detected any thing different. Another was to see how the atmosphere/environment affected yeast. Third was a bag of chips to see if it burst. Fourth was a partially painted, laser cut, wooden derby racer to see the impact on the wood and the paint. All had controls that were kept in the classroom.
They successfully recovered the balloon.

One issue they ran into with the launch was the scale used to measure how much helium was going into the balloon for lift. It is supposed to be X more than the weight of the payloads. The scale would make a reading , then hold on the highest number. They had to keep resetting the scale to make a new measurement. More helpful would be a scale that constantly changes

I was back at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence County. This time I took stomp rockets. It was an exciting time for all, though you have to remind young ones to put their name on their rocket. Some colored their rocket, others got straight to building. I have a pdf with rocket and fins on one page, but I sometimes wonder if that is too much (information/instructions) on one page for some kids. They all had fun, except the one that took almost the whole time to color their rocket and didnt get the fins on before they had to leave

templates (link to slide that i download as pdf)