This week in the iNEST maker club, students continued to select projects of interest. Students were observed working on a variety of projects including paper masks, Little Bits circuits, Snap Circuits, and finishing up soft circuit projects with conductible thread and LEDs. Starting next week, club mentors will begin working with volunteer students on Hummingbird robotics projects that will be programmed with the Snap programming language. We believe a few sample projects will quickly create a buzz about this technology with many more students jumping in to program their own robotics projects.
Dr. Oliver completed and submitted the first annual report to the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund this week, highlighting data collected from the club's first semester in spring 2016. The report included evidence that the club is supporting computational thinking and increased science competence in students, and students are also reporting increased interest in and enthusiasm for science as a result of club activities. We are excited about these results, particularly given the projects we've worked on to date haven't even used the most exciting technologies that we will be rolling out in coming months in robotics and fabrication (3D printing, digital embroidery). This week in iNEST, most of the 28 attendees continued to work on soft circuit projects combining felt, sewable LED's, and sewable coin cell battery packs into fashion-oriented bracelets and brooches. The self-serve club concept is working with some students working on alternative projects of interest such as snap circuits. Today club mentors divided one of the three Hummingbird sets into bins, so students will be able to work on programmed robotics activities more easily with labeled parts.
In today's iNEST club meeting, Stephanie gave 30 students a basic overview of circuitry concepts that will be used across multiple projects, and Kevin and Mariam demonstrated two Hummingbird projects that students can recreate with the Hummingbird robotics kits. Club mentors also worked to get new club members enrolled in GameLab where they can find quests/activities to work on this semester. Students were informed the club will be a self-serve space this semester, now that the club cabinets are fully stocked with supplies and equipment. Students then chose projects from GameLab that they wanted to work on, pulling out relevant materials and starting to work. Many students opted to work on soft circuit projects today, creating brooches and bracelets from felt with light-up LED components. Others worked with snap circuits, paper/copper foil circuit greeting cards, and paper masks.
The first meeting of the 2016-17 iNEST Maker Club was held this week on Tuesday, September 6th, with 28 students in attendance. New members were guided to sign up for 3D GameLab accounts, where they will find all of the quests or maker activities supported in the club. We have been working over the summer to add new activities to GameLab, and this fall students will be able to work with the Hummingbird robotics platform for the first time. Hummingbird allows students to attach a variety of sensors to a computing board, and program the board with the Snap or Scratch programming language to make their robot creations do certain things (e.g., swing an arm when someone claps, say hello when the light is turned on, etc.).
In today's club meeting, Stephanie introduced the girls to the basics of sewing, using simple buttons, snaps, and pieces of felt. One of the new activities this fall will allow students to sew conductible thread into e-textile projects, so we wanted to make sure everyone had the basic skills to complete this project. In a few weeks, we will move away from everyone doing the same activity and become a self-service club now that 3D GameLab is set up and fully functioning with plenty of activities. Students will be able to log-into GameLab, choose the projects they want to work on, and pull their own materials from the cabinets we have stocked with supplies and equipment. We would like to welcome two new mentors to the club this fall. Through NC State's Provost's Experience Program (PEP), Mariam Elias will be helping out students in the club on Tuesdays, along with last year's mentors. Mariam is an undergraduate student in technology and engineering education in NC State's College of Education. We are also pleased to welcome 8th grade science and math teacher Megan Patberg who will be helping out with club activities this fall. Finally, we are pleased to announce that planning has begun to take a group of continuing club members to the Invent It Build It Expo in Philadelphia this fall. One teacher and one parent volunteer will be chaperoning the group, and school staff have been working hard behind the scenes to secure parental/county permissions, airfare, hotel reservations, event tickets, and more. We hope this will be a great learning experience in STEM for these deserving young women. While there are not enough grant funds to take everyone to this national event, students who continue in the club year after year and earn the most points in the 3D GameLab environment for project work, will be the first eligible for this experience in future years. All club members are eligible to take local field trips, and we are actively planning our first local field trip for this fall. |
Purpose:Dr. Oliver's weekly update of activities in the iNEST Maker Club. Archives
April 2019
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