Traditionally, during Technology Class, I take my 7th grade students through a quick design and build unit using MinecraftEDU. While it is an enjoyable experience, the unit has always lacked context. My history teacher and I have talked about a joint project for the last two years, where we might integrate Minecraft with the study of some ancient culture, but we've never got the timing to work. 

Thankfully, this year, we worked through the schedule and the class is now engaged in the recreation of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, based on the research students have done to understand what the city may have looked like. 

Working in small groups of two to three, students have chosen an architectural structure, ranging from Great Temple, to marketplace, to Chinampas (floating gardens) and other significant buildings. We designated one team as City Planners. The City Planners were required to map out where various structures were located in the city, and to coordinate with all the builders accordingly. City Planners also distribute supplies out to the various teams. For those who know Minecraft, City Planners were set to Creative Mode, while the remainder are set to MinecraftEDU mode. This latter mode gives students a mixture of creative and survival in that they do not need to worry about hunger or the gathering of supplies, but they also cannot fly. City Planners, on the other hand, need to fly as they review the progress on the overall city plan.

This inability to fly for regular builders has created a stir in some of the players, particularly one of the pyramid groups. They asked for special permission to fly in order to speed up their build process, but were denied. To get around this, they created an innovative system of building out each corner with initial blocks from which they could quickly push out the layered blocks. It was wonderful to see their process of working through a challenging issue with given design constraints.
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​We are about mid-way through the unit, and while it has taken time for some players to get acclimated to the environment, we have reached a state of flow. I look forward to the end result, but the process has lived up to my expectations and far exceeds what I could have done on my own.

The second term of Creator's Studio has begun. For some reason, the Spring season seems to fly by faster than the fall. I think it's due to the 8th grade DC trip, finals week, Spring Break, and other special schedules and holidays. As such, my plan is to focus on just two projects before their personal project. I will skip automata this time around. My purpose for the smaller projects before their personal project is two-fold. They need the exposure to some of the basic electronic, robotics and coding principles ahead of time, but they also need practice in how to work through the project design, build and iterate cycle. 

I opened up this semester with a short video clip from Moon Shot, the Google Lunar X Project. While I would encourage everyone to view the entire series, the final episode provides a concise overview of the competition's goals and its contestants. I asked students to think about what mindset these contestants must have, and how they are approaching the design, building and iterating process. I asked for single words or short phrases. After watching the video, here's what the students said:

Their responses were spot on. I hoped to convey the message that this same mindset can be applied to many of life's challenges, and even to this very class. I stated that these same approaches in mindset will be what they themselves demonstrate as they go through the semester with me. 

We launched right into Project #1, "Light Up, Spin!", where students design and construct a simple circuit on a wooden block. During the project, students work through the Design, Build and Iterate process. This is their first exposure to the process, which we will repeat in project two, and finally in their own personal project.

Students start off with a simple hand-drawn design idea for their circuit. This process is always revealing for me, as students at this age haven't yet grasped the concept of planning out their steps in the design process. They are in a hurry to build, and believe a first draft of the design is sufficient to build from. 

On day two of the project, I show one of their initial designs on the board, and we all walk through how to take it from a simple to a more detailed design. We make sure to include all materials and electronic components in the design, a path for the wiring, and appropriate labels and measurements so that someone else seeing the design for the first time would have a clear idea of what is about to be built.

During these design days I also instruct students on how to handle a soldering iron, and give them time to practice stripping wire and soldering two leads together, including the use of heat shrink to cover the exposed wire. They also have some time to start gathering their materials. For the remaining days of Project #1, students will build and test their designs, make adjustments as necessary, and share the results with classmates.

Time. "We need more time..."

Time can be the greatest challenge to schools when seeking to provide an atmosphere of inquiry, curiosity, iteration, design and prototyping. In previous posts here on Creator's Studio, I've expressed my anxiety in hoping students can complete their projects. In various cases, students have come in at lunch or recess, after the term has ended, in order to finish a project they valued. It had nothing to do with the grade, since I evaluate the process and the documentation over the product. Rather, students wanted to finish because they believed in the work they were doing.

How can we successfully take students through an engineering design cycle, or the Design Thinking Process, and allow them to thoroughly experience the process of ideation, prototyping, testing, iteration, in 45 minute time blocks every other day? It is an extreme challenge, and unfortunately one for which I don't have an answer. 

However, in my three years of Creator's Studio, I have picked up strategies and a few techniques along the way to developing a system that streamlines the process of learning the tools necessary for success in the course. 

For me, the most valuable use of time during class is to serve as mentor, coach, guide. I can help students along the learning journey, but that journey is theirs to take. Class time, in my opinion, should be filled with those precious moments when we can discuss, confer, share, bounce ideas, test assumptions, make mistakes, and go back to the drawing board. It would seem that the learning of procedural tasks has little space in an environment such as this, and yet we cannot hope to adjust our 3D print if we don't know how to use the 3D software. We cannot refine that wood component if we don't know how to use the saw or sander.

If we can offload some of the more procedural tasks using technology, we can capture more class time for what we do best.

In this regard, I have devoted an entire section of this site to video instruction. These are open to the public and available on my Youtube channel. In addition, I ask my students to log in through Grovo, which provides the same videos accompanied by assessment questions and a tracking system. In this manner, I can monitor their progress and learning. These lessons are often assigned as homework, so that students can learn and "get certified" before coming to school the following day. Lessons range from how to design in 2D and 3D, to how to solder or use the drill press.

To further increase the immediacy with which students (and teachers, parents, visitors) can access these video-based lessons, I have posted QR codes throughout PIRL and PIRL Terrace, strategically located near the tools for which they are designed. Using free tools like QR Code Generator, one can easily create the QR code to point to any website resource. 

As a visitor to our space, one can use apps like QR Code Reader and Scanner,  Quick Scan, or Red Laser on a mobile device to quickly jump to the video instruction pages.

As I mentioned, I don't have a complete answer as to how we might create the ideal conditions for learning within the time constraints of traditional schooling. But given those constraints, creative methods can be found for managing how we organize and prioritize the quality time we spend with our students. 

Between the fall and spring sessions of Creator's Studio, I highlight other events on campus that may be related to making, design, engineering, or any other creative activity. This month we had two larger events take place, our annual 8th grade Physics project in science, and new this year, the K-8 Buddies Maker Day.

I've blogged about Physics Day before (here and here) so won't go into great detail. The overall idea is that students in science class build Rube Goldberg devices that demonstrate a minimum of 7 physics concepts, such as momentum, acceleration, and potential and kinetic energy. One highlight I will point out this year is that a group chose to include a hummingbird robotics board into the design. Their goal was to integrate light and distance sensors into their project, such that the traveling marble would trigger these sensors and make something else in the design take action. Originally, they had hoped to make LEDs light up, but chose instead to incorporate servo motors so that the rotation of those motors would lead to the next step in the marble's path.

I enjoy Physics Day, even though it does not directly involve me. I help students during the build day, and take pictures and video on exhibit day, but the real work is done by our science teacher and the students. However, it's moments like this where I have the opportunity to work with individual students in an area where I may be helpful, that validate my decision to go back into the classroom. One of these girls is a former Creator's Studio student, and thus had the experience of working with Hummingbirds, and knew the potential of the tool. It was her vision that made the design possible, and the two worked together to test their ideas, modify where necessary, and ultimately find success in the final product.

Here's a short clip of the design in action, during exhibit day. You will notice that when the domino drops into the cup, it shuts off light to a sensor inside, thereby moving a servo controlled L-shaped bracket that releases a new marble. This marble then drops into a cup which uses a pulley to bring another cup into view of a distance sensor. That sensor then triggers yet another cup to pour sprinkles onto a cupcake! 

The second activity this month was new for our campus. Each year, the 8th graders are assigned a kindergarten buddy, and the pair (sometimes threesome) meet regularly during various scheduled activities. This year the K and 8th grade teachers asked for a day to allow K-8 partners to utilize our PIRL space and explore some of the tools we have available. We set up seven stations, both inside and outside of PIRL.

Station One: Simple Marble Machines
Having so recently worked on their Rube Goldberg devices, the 8th graders showed their K buddies how to build a simple marble machine. I provided a more modular and flexible design for this activity so that groups could easily build, take apart, and build again. While I set up three different boards to work with, some students chose to incorporate all three into one large project.

Station Two: Dash and Ollie Maze
Students in this station used the Tickle Coding App on the iPad to help Dash and Ollie navigate a floor maze. Along the way they toppled cans and rolled through cardboard bridges.

Station Three: Construction Zone
At this station, students used cardboard, foam, construction paper, googly eyes, and anything else they could get their hands on to build something that the kindergartner wanted. We saw doll houses, snow plows and minecraft creatures coming out of this area. 

Station Four: Wind Tunnel!
Students here were tasked with constructing an object with at least three items available on the table. The object was then tested in the wind tunnel. Could they make an object that zoomed up quickly, floated slowly, or hovered in place?

Station Five: Sphero Playground
Similar to the Ollie and Dash station, students programmed and navigated a maze with their Spheros.

Station Six: Make it Light Up, Make it Move
Using simple home-made circuit blocks or the more finely tuned LittleBits kits, students explored how to build circuits. Here they learned to categorize different types of components (power, load, control) in order to understand how electricity flows, what provides the energy, and where it is used.

Station Seven: Smile!
All students visited this station at one point during the day. Pictures were taken with the green screen for a future project (sssh!). 

The K-8 Buddies Maker Day was a fun, collaborative experience that we hope to repeat each year. It will be interesting to see how new tools are introduced into the process as the technology advances. Is there an Oculus Rift or Microsoft Hololens in our future? More likely than not, it will be something that doesn't even exist today.

The semester has come to an end, and what a whirlwind it has been. Students completed three projects (Electrical, Mechanical and Robotic) and had just six class meetings with which to design, build, test and iterate on their personal project. 

As a result of the three initial projects, some students chose to expand or improve on one of these earlier works in their personal project phase. One student, for example, worked on a wooden version of the automaton as a gift for her father. 

A few students delved deeper into Hummingbird, this time using Duos in order to eliminate the tethering to the computer. They sent their Visual Programmer code to the Arduino on the other side of the board and powered their projects with battery packs. While one group found success in creating a distance sensing, object-avoidance car (hacking an existing RC car), the other group ran into some design and coding problems while trying to get a 3D printed boat to work in a similar manner. In the end, this latter group did not complete their project, but were able to show their code, their process and final build.

Finally, the remaining students worked on unique projects such as 3D designed and printed surf board fins, a water-based timer, and an LED lit iPhone case. One student, inspired by a previous student's light box project, designed a decorative box in 2D, laser cut and assembled it in wood, then 3D designed and printed a base. She then added two circuits, one for slow color changing LEDs, and another for an adjustable speed DC motor. Her final project is below. 

Once again, I enjoyed seeing the creativity, persistence, and ingenuity demonstrated by my students throughout the semester. The curriculum modification to four specific projects (including personal project) worked well, and I look forward to the spring semester. 

​For further details about student projects, please be sure to visit the Student Blogs section.

Project #3 this semester is called "I Am Robot" and the tool of choice is the Hummingbird robotics kit. This is the third semester of usage for hummingbird and with each subsequent go round I learn something new about this wonderful platform. This semester, I have a few groups who needed to do more with motors than the provided DC motors would easily allow. They have decided to de-construct some old remote control cars, and are integrating the parts into their project. While one can program the standard DC motor to spin, and can even add a 3D printed wheel, how much more fun is it to take an existing car chassis and rewire the motors to accelerate and/or turn through coding, and build in a sensor to detect objects?

Project criteria is as follows:
Design something, using the Hummingbird robotics kit and any materials found in class or otherwise acquired, that senses the environment, analyzes the data, and reacts in some manner (sound, movement, lights). The process is Sense, Think, Act. Students work in pairs or individually to develop the code, make all necessary connections, build and test the project. 

I believe that going through projects #1 (simple circuit) and #2 (automata) has helped to prepare students for this current project. They've had experience in working with LEDs, motors, switches, power, as well as exploring the way parts interact and move. Students therefore approach the robotics unit with more background knowledge and skills than groups in the past. To add to the knowledge and skills, there is a certain level of fearlessness that they have grown accustomed to, given their ability to try things out in the previous two projects, make adjustments, make mistakes, and make improvements.

In terms of process, having students go through the design, build, iterate process for each project provides a good deal of necessary practice. In a sense, therefore, the process itself has gone through its own iterations. My ultimate hope is that they take all of this experience into their personal projects. Below are some short clips of students at work.

Project #2 is under way. In this unit, students are creating their own mechanical motion piece, or Automata. After a brief introduction to the concept of Automata, students are tasked with creating their own cardboard automata using iPhone boxes, foam, wood skewers and their imagination. Through the introduction, students learned about key components, like shafts, cams, gears, bearings, and cranks. They viewed a number of sample automata on youtube. They explored wooden examples in class.

The project criteria is as follows. Project must:

• fit on top of the box provided
• be no larger than 8” tall x 8” wide x 8” deep
• include the following mechanical elements:
  • at least one horizontal shaft with handle
  • at least one vertical shaft for movement above
  • at least one cam, gear or crank
• represent something in real life

After initial sketches during the design phase, students gathered their materials and began building out preliminary models. I discovered in this project that it was much harder to pre-measure in the sketches. Students didn't really know how big or small their parts needed to be until they started testing things out with real materials. Given that we primarily use cardboard and foam, this method of prototyping was still cost effective, as designs changed as a result of testing.

Students used new tools in this unit, including eyelets and eyelet crimpers. These helped to allow for a smooth channel through which their shafts travel, and to provide greater support within the cardboard walls. With one more day of iteration and building, I look forward to final products and student blog posts next week.

Students then begin to think about their own circuit block, using the following criteria:

PROJECT MUST:

• ​fit on a 3.5” square wood block
• be no taller than 10"
• include ONE of the following elements (called loads):
  • up to 3 LEDs
  • an  incandescent bulb
  • a motor
• be powered by a battery source (including a switch)
• represent something in real life

During the Design phase students share their ideas about what they would like to build, and start their preliminary “rough” sketches. Students share their idea in small group, then have a bit more time to polish these initial sketches. During the next class, students spend time looking for materials in PIRL and PIRL Terrace, and begin to finalize their sketch with measurements and a true materials list.

By this time, students are ready to move into the Build phase, starting with cardboard, foam, spare pieces of acrylic and anything they can find that would serve well as part of their project.  They are asked to build out the parts excluding the wiring first, just to see what the object looks like. During this session, I also cover how to use specific tools like cardboard cutting scissors, safety blades, triangles and glue guns. 

The next session is spent learning how to wire a circuit and use the soldering iron. There’s no better way to learn than while you are right in the middle of your project and you need this skill to complete your work. I find students incredibly helpful with each other in this stage. Some take to soldering much easier than others so it’s an opportunity for them to work together, and for some students to serve as mentors for others.

At this point, for those who include LEDs into their circuit blocks, I post a helper graphic on the wall for how to wire the circuit, including an appropriately rated resistor. We use ledcalc to see what wiring diagram and resistor size fits their model.

The final day is spent finishing up any last minute design changes (Iterate phase), taking pictures and video for their blog post, and sharing out final work. If time allows, students can follow up the initial materials with wood or acrylic. The projects are not taken home, as they will serve as showcase pieces until the end of the semester when parents come in for exhibit time.

We are now in year three of Creator's Studio. Over the course of the last two years our students have acquired skills (coding, digital design and fabrication, physical computing) in classes beyond Creator's, out of necessity. A unit in 5th grade science or 6th grade history might benefit from one or more of these tools, so we've supported our students in getting things done. 

All of this is a wonderful result of providing a rich learning environment for our students, but as an instructor it challenges me to revisit and sometimes re-invent my own curriculum. This is the case for the fall, as I have adjusted my goals for Creator's Studio. While in prior years I focused mainly on tool use during the first half of the semester in order to prepare students for their personal project, this year all units of study are wrapped inside projects and threaded with the "Design, Build, Iterate" process. 

I have now broken down the semester into these four projects:

1) Light Up and Spin! (Electronics): Digging a little deeper into how a circuit works, and understanding power versus load, students will create their own circuit block using LEDs, incandescent bulbs, or a motor. It will include a switch and a power source.

2) Shake Your Groove! (Mechanical Motion): Here students will investigate automata and their various mechanical movements, using cams, gears, levers, and other components. Starting with a prototype in cardboard and foam, students will ultimately walk away with their own automaton demonstrating motion through manual power.

3) I am Robot (Coding/Robotics): Using our Hummingbird Robotics kids, students will work in pairs to build and program a type of robot that senses the environment and reacts in some manner through lights and/or motors.

4) Personal Project: The largest portion of the semester is dedicated to a student's individual personal project. While similar in nature to prior years, this year there is an emphasis on originality. Students can be inspired by others' work, but step-by-step "kits" are no longer allowed. Rather, students must design, build, and iterate in order to complete the project. Students will share final work with parents on the last day of class.

I look forward to the new goals for this semester and will, of course, reflect on this experience in the coming months.

Frequently throughout the year, particularly when Creator's Studio is not in session, I will post here about other projects we have going on throughout campus. One such project, in 3rd grade, is an Operation-style game we create with students while they are studying about the human body. Inspired by Josh Burker's wonderful project on this topic, we use Makey Makeys and Scratch, along with cardboard, clay and conductive tape to build our Operation Games. Students design a body on cardboard boxes, and select what organs or parts of the body they want to operate on. They cut holes for those organs, line the holes with conductive copper tape, and bring all the "wires" back to a central location for connection to the Makey Makey. We use a set of conductive chopsticks as the operating tool of choice, which is also connected to the makey makey. Students make their organs out of clay.

While this project works well at school, we realized last year that in order for students to enjoy their completed project at home, we had to design an alternative circuit. We cannot provide Makey Makeys for every student, and it seems unreasonable to expect parents to purchase one (although now with Makey Makey Go the idea is more realistic). Therefore, we designed a simple circuit by adding a coin cell battery, an LED and wire. When students make contact with the rim of any of their operation spaces, the LED lights up. 

An alternative to this set up is to use a buzzer instead of an LED (keeping in mind the buzzer must be rated for 3V), but we felt this was a nicer, quieter option. You can see the final piece in the last row of photos below.