2/5/2019. The grand experiment in geodesic design did not go so well with only two groups finishing their triangle cut-outs and starting to construct their domes this week. After three weeks, we need to put this project aside to move on to other project areas next week. Lessons learned? Give students a template for the two triangle shapes they need to cut out instead of wasting time measuring and creating that template on their own. Or perhaps even cut out the shapes in advance so students can concentrate on building instead of the menial task of cutting out dozens of triangle shapes. Cutting cardboard is not easy with scissors, and schools don't trust kids not to cut desks with x-acto or other carpet knives, so that too slows down the process. We do think kids would enjoy constructing domes with our MakeDo construction kits, but unfortunately the considerable up-front work of preparing triangle pieces proved to be de-motivating and un-interesting over several weeks time.
Another activity some of our club members participated in this week was a virtual field trip using virtual reality headsets to a live remote site that was demonstrating a science experiment. The College of Education at NC State brought this equipment to the school to test a new approach for live virtual field trips, and the girls were able to provide feedback on the experience. Comments are closed.
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Purpose:Dr. Oliver's weekly update of activities in the iNEST Maker Club. Archives
April 2019
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