SWE WOW

Is a Girl Scouts event for them to get some hands on experience in Engineering.
They built catapults and worked with a solar sail. Our session was electricity/circuits.

The older ones lit up an LED with a battery, then used alligator clips to connect it.
Next we code a micro:bit to turn the light on and off.
Finally we connected christmas lights to the micro:bit and coded it to do various colors

The middle group worked with batteries and bulbs and alligator clips. They lit up 1 light, then many. They transitioned to alligator clips and lit up one , then many (in parallel – we didnt do series)

The youngest crowd worked with squishy circuits…playdough is conductive. They lit up lights, made buzzers buzz and motors spin.

So remember :

Spent an evening at the Crawford County 4-H office helping them (7 people) learn how to use their laser.
We utilized the noun project for images and Cuttle for design.
At the end we learned about using the camera to scan a hand drawn image.

We participated in the North Daviess Elementary School STEM night.
There were about 100 students that came through.
We had LED’s & batteries out, as well as some pipe cleaners.
But the big draw was everyone wanted to make a button.
It was NON-STOP button making…with a little bit of reading mixed in (they had to read or help me read the directions

Feb 17th was the Monroe County 4-H Expo at the Fairgrounds. Lots of tables showing interested youngsters what 4-H is all about and the myriad of things you can do in it. I had an activity table for youngsters to do a “make & take”. Just the typical pipe cleaners for bracelets and LED’s/batteries to light things up and coffee stirrers to make shapes. Some kids combined two and made light up bracelets. It was hopping for the couple of hours.

February 17th was the annual Black Market by Bloomington Parks & Recreation Department. They have a mix of small black business vendors and some activity tables. We had a few things out for people to work with. We had plus-plus building parts and pipe cleaners. We had some 3D printed articulated animals and a stop motion animation set up because this years theme was “Blacks in Cinema“. We also tried to get a green screen setup going, but the apps want you to save picture to your device, and we felt that wasnt the best idea. The crowd was down this year, partly due to the snowstorm the night before (and frigid temps)

I went over to Columbus Ohio for the annual Ohio Educators Technology Conference (OETC).
There were a few makerspace sessions and a couple of Maker playgrounds that I helped out at.
One group was showing shrinky dinks and using a heat gun to shrink them
I reconnected with some people and had some good education discussions.
There were many sessions on AI.

I learned that Houston Acrylic sells some “Ugly Duckling” packs of acrylic with blemishes for half price (though teachers might get them for less???). (I usually buy from Smokey Hill Designs)

Someone shared PixBrix, another building block item that can partner with Lego. You can build 2D or 3D designs.

I spoke with the Kajeet people about a mobile wifi alternative to our mifi, especially if we want more devices.

I also spoke with the B&H Photo Video & Canon people about poster printers. I really want a 24″ wide format printer (cost $1000-1500 depending on which ink cartridges you want to utilize – less uses the smaller ones ($1 per mL) ; more uses the larger ones (50 cents per mL)). I think there are many uses for it in schools. The cost of a poster is a couple of dollars compared to the $20-30 that Walgreens or CVS charges.
Maybe we can work a donation for some marketing/promo of the product…

I was hoping to write this post after I did these activities…but ordering at the University has really gotten slow (4+ weeks and still things aren’t in, some haven’t gotten through the whole process…)

1) Shaving cream sun painting :
from https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/shaving-cream-sun-model/

paper plates
shaving cream
yellow food coloring
red food coloring
toothpicks
scrap cardboard/squeegee

shaving cream on a paper plate, flatten out, drops of food color, swirl it, press paper on it (hold a couple of seconds), pull paper off, wipe shaving cream off

2) Earth-moon necklace (1” earth means 0.27” moon and  109” sun) (aka 25 mm & 6 mm)
https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/eclipse-party-activities/  

wooden beads
(25 mm & 6 mm)

stretchy cord
(up to 2 mm diameter)

I am thinking colored pencils or sharpies to color the Earth & Moon.

I also want to add a 9’x12′ drop cloth that I cut out & tye dye a 9′ sun (so also add some RIT dye)
Not sure the best way to “mount” it. I have a 9′ tall van…but not 9′ wide.
Pex tube 1/2″ ???

3) Eclipse chalk art
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/eclipse-chalk-art/ 

black cardstock
other cardstock to cut 4″ circles
sidewalk chalk

put lots of color onto the 4″ circle
place onto the black cardstock and hold
wipe chalk radially (from the center) onto the black cardstock
remove the 4″ circle piece

4) NASA PUNCH card 
get various shaped hole punches and index cards 
https://punch.space.swri.edu/punch_outreach_pinholeprojector.php  
https://punch.space.swri.edu/files/Mark-III-3HPPP-Printing-Instructions_English.pdf

cardstock
add various shape holes (tiny)

at a certain height, they will project an image of the sun.

Not sure the most cost efficient way to get some different shape holes

these are what they suggest (but that means 3 at ~$8 each)
○ Round hole punch
○ Square hole punch
○ Triangle hole punch

I hope to find time to add some more below

I spent one class period each with 3 – 5th grade classes to code the micro:bit and neopixels to send some morse code (you also need 3 alligator clip wires). I thought that using number of lights would be easier than how long a light was on would be easier to understand dot/dash.  In one class period we only got as far as lighting up 1 light for a dot and 3 lights for a dash. They were going to work on it further the next time class met to actually send a message

I got to spend 3 days at South Central Jr/Sr High in Elizabeth, Indiana. I worked with a variety of teachers and students.

We started with makey-makey in the Environmental Science class where they were working on food webs. They picked one omnivore, carnivore, herbivore, producer, decomposer. They either made a model or drawing, then connected it to the makey makey and recorded some information to be spoken when touched

The next class was history where we talked about da vinci a little. They made a “whirlygig” and dropped them in the gym. Then they tried their hand at making a da vinci bridge out of craft sticks. This is really difficult because the sticks slide on each other. A couple of groups got a bridge, others seemed to be weaving a wall.

Then it was off to ICP where they had been studying motion so we talked a little about the concepts of speed, velocity, acceleration, forces. The students worked on making a rubberband powered vehicle to explore those concepts. two groups had a vehicle that moved by the end of the block. They were hoping to keep trying next time class met.
Everyone starts by gluing wheels on an axle then gluing that to some sticks…when they really need to start by building a chasis, then figuring out how to attach wheel/axle that spins.
Of course there were materials to bling it out.

WE finished the day in biology where they have been studying genetics. Their task was to choose 6 traits to give a Momma & Pappa monster, then choose how they represented in each (dominant vs recessive). Next was to talk about what traits would show in the offspring. They had to make or draw both parents an 3 offspring.

That evening we held a “Maker Night” for Elementary students. We had about 75 show up with at least one adult, often two adults (and some younger siblings)
They got to :

     make their own string art (pounding nails & wrapping string)(1000 ran out fast).
     build with coffee stirrers and pipe cleaners
     build with PVC
     design a backpack tag to laser cut
It was busy.

The next day we did some more genetics, asked Science Olympiad kids questions (and lent a hand), built more rubberband racers, then ended with Biotechnology class and talking about genetic modifications. Their task was to give a plant or animal two traits from another, with a reason. And make the model

Day 3 we spent time with 2 Algebra classes. They had been studying linear equations and just started “System of Equations”. The teacher had found a project that I tweaked a little. Students were creating a map of a city that they were planning. Some buildings were given, as well as a river and highway (equations). They had to add a street between two points, then more streets parallel & perpendicular.  Then some more buildings and bridges. Some of this required them to solve a System of Equations to find locations. They also had to create equations for parallel and perpendicular roads. This was started in Desmos, then transferred to a large paper. Then as they went through successive steps, they could use Desmos to check things before adding to big map.
I forgot how long it would take for students to create their own grid on lard paper (which is why i used to buy a roll of grid paper)

The last block of the day was honors English. They are reading books (of their own choosing) and “highlighting” examples of “descriptive text” (like simile, alliteration, …). Today was their chance to pick a phrase and make a physical model of it

The Indiana Connections Career Academy (an online charter school) asked us to be a part of their event at the event center of Grand Park (there were several exhibitors, including a disc golf hole). It was a 4 hour time window where there students could come together from across Indiana to meet up and learn some different things. So we unloaded several activities for their students (maybe 70 k-8). Several teachers from the academy and some HS students helped with the activities.
We had :
     pvc construction
     battery & bulb (CR2032 & 5 mm LED) and paper circuits
     sticker cutting with Cricut Joy
     coding & robotics with micro:bit
     stomp rockets
     general “build something” with craft supplies and cardboard

One interesting thing was that when kids saw the stomp rocket launchers in one spot, and similar pvc materials in another spot, they decided to make their own launchers. There were multiple rocket launchers as well as multiple bottle inputs…unfortunately we ran out of bottles mid way through the time. (I like using 12-20 ounce bottles)