In Creator's Studio, I often emphasize the fact that students will run into problems when developing their projects, and thus need to pay attention to what went wrong and consider how to approach their next revision. Something they build doesn't quite work as planned the first time around, so they must analyze the issues and go back to the drawing board with possible corrective measures. This may happen once, it may happen multiple times, and the point is to not give up, be patient, and continue to move forward.

For young learners, this process can feel very frustrating. It can be difficult to see the value in iteration until one begins to see progress and can reflect on what happened. As much as I might say that failure is a vital piece of the learning process, this concept is not always accepted graciously.

This week I worked on a wearables project for my Tinkering Fundamentals course through Coursera. I have enjoyed this course immensely, not simply because of the concepts learned,  and the ideas and viewpoints shared by classmates, but also for the opportunity to sit in the learner's seat. It is vital for me, as a teacher, to experience projects from this perspective, in order to understand the challenges and stumbling blocks my own students may go through in a similar situation. 

For my project I chose the LilyTiny. There are a growing number of wearable microcontrollers that range in price, function and complexity. Here are just a few that I have worked with:

• LilyPad and LilyTiny
• Flora from Adafruit
• Sparkle from Aniomagic
• Trinket and Gemma from Adafruit

I selected the LilyTiny because I wanted to spend my time on the circuit design, not the programming. The Tiny comes pre-built with a program that provides various sequences of blinks and fades on the four available connections for LEDs, so testing the circuit is quick and easy. Or so it should be.

Am I glad that I didn't have to worry about the programming, because the sewing of the circuit was challenging enough for my old eyes and thick fingers. I went through at least three iterations, switching out the item I was sewing on, changing the design of the circuit, and having to de-thread my first attempt because of a short circuit or open circuit that I never found. Just like my middle school students, I wanted to finish quickly and perfectly, and it just wasn't to be. I had to tell myself, "Be patient, don't give up, try something new, and move forward".

Having gone through this iterative process this past week, here are a few tips I can share with regard to wearable projects:

1. Take the time to draw out your circuit on paper before sewing, this will help you to know how to orient your various pieces for a clean design and no crossover connections;
2. Test out the wiring with alligator clips to make sure all components are working and that your circuit is wired correctly;
3. Use a needle threader to assist the conductive thread through the needle. I purchased these inexpensive ones from Amazon;
   
4. Design your circuit with enough space between components so that you avoid the potential for thread overlap or contact (see my pic below of the final circuit design).

This was a very good learning experience, not simply for the technology, but for the design process as well. Having to rework the circuit layout, take a step backward in setting up the design on paper after a failed sewing attempt, and going through multiple tests for continuity all tested my patience, perseverance and mental grit. 

As with most projects, the journey was as fulfilling as the destination.

This week's activity in  Tinkering Fundamentals: A Constructivist Approach to STEM Learning is about scribbling machines, small devices made from recycled parts to generate some kind of unique drawing on paper. Key components involved in making this machine work are a simple DC motor, a battery, and some writing instruments. If you'd like to make one, here is the activity guide on scribbling machines from the Exploratorium.

I decided to make one very "traditional" scribbling machine with three pens and a petri dish as a base (traditional because it resembles the machines in the activity guide). The second scribbling machine uses a single pen, and a plastic piece from a stuffed mechanical toy I took apart in the previous week's activity. I selected this piece of plastic because I thought it might produce some interesting patterns once set in motion. On this second machine, I used the motor to spin a wheel made from the top of a play dough cup. The two machines produced very different patterns, as you can see in the videos below.

This activity can be extremely open-ended, giving students just the initial concept (battery must power a motor which vibrates object holding pens to draw on paper) but leaving the rest of the design up to them. When I do this with my class in the fall, I will provide a number of objects of varying shapes, sizes, textures and colors from which students can build their scribbling machines. 

The process of designing, testing, refining, retesting is naturally embedded in a project of this kind. There are so many variables, such as body shape, off-set weight on motor, pen types, motor polarity, and more, with which students can experiment. When I envision doing this activity with students, some questions that come to mind are:

1. What can you do to make the pattern more or less uniform?
2. What happens when you reverse the wires on the motor?
3. Can you produce a drawing that is not circular?
4. Can you intentionally produce solid versus dotted lines?
5. What kind of design makes the machine travel farther/shorter?

Going beyond the basic scribbling machine requirements, students might create one that is turned on by a switch, lights up an LED, waves a flag, or is remotely controlled. The possibilities are truly without limit. Have you done this with your students? I'd love to hear about it.