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For the last 18 months, I have been a member of the Capital Area Council for the STEM SCOUTS, a program of the Boy Scouts of America that established mini Maker labs in elementary and middle schools in the Austin area. I get weekly status reports on the labs, and coordinate the lab guides that work with volunteer teachers and parents that run the labs. attended monthly meetings. The committee tests the lab activities, which are designed at the national office, and helps roll them out locally. The video shows a simple robotics vision tracker used in one of the labs
I help coordinate the lab guides that work with parents and students at elementary and middle schools to set up after school maker labs. The kids get interested in the hands on projects, which span many interests and reinforce science and engineering concepts in many ways. The Scouts have "Vortex Van" which is essentially a traveling 10 minute maker activity that can be parked at school and let dozens of students get their first maker experience. The National Boy Scouts staff supplies complete for each lab, and the activities are very well designed.
We adapted the "Lumpers and Splitters" perspectives style exercise as new vortex activity.
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Jun 22, 2017
I have been teaching a summer day camp class called "Are You Wired for Wireless" to students ranging from 1st grade to 5th grade. It has been a revelation both in the tremendous variation in attention spans and interests, and the huge range of existing knowledge of the subject. As I thought, everyone is familiar with wireless technology, but few know how is works. Today, we are constructing a big generator using 100' long extension cords moving like jump ropes in the earth's magnetic field (from a UC/NASA lesson plan). We will set up first along the NS direction and spin the rope slow and then fast, using a galvanometer to measure the current in the loop. Then we will make the same two measurements with our loop set up along an E-W axis, and bring it all back to classroom to analyze the differences between fast and slow rotation and direction of movement, and visualizing the earth's magnetic field as part of a giant generator.
If time allows, we will then listen to "whistlers" travel along the lines of earth's magnetic field, to construct that image for the students in another way.
Next week, we cover wave motion, do some experiments with blocking and reflecting Wi-Fi signals, and go over the history of radio, hopefully completing a crystal set radio in class.
Jul 15, 2017
I finished my wireless unit for K-6 summer students. Our big swinging loop generator to measure the earth's magnetic field did not work well - we needed a lighter and easier to swing 100' wire (we used an extension cord) and a more sensitive ammeter or an oscilloscope to see the very low current generated (micro-amps at best estimate). The Wimshurst machine was a hit. Final class project was building crystal sets. This two weeks are an intro to neuroscience course for 1st through 4th graders. Most interest so far was in Giant Squid Axons and Gummy Bear Osmosis..
I just finished teaching 2 courses at a summer STEAM style camp; one on wireless technology, and one on the nervous system. Making means using technology to give the students a hands-on experience with it, while communicating a ‘big idea’ from another area of science. For example, if I taught the nervous system class again, I would probably use LEDs and/or Zener diodes to introduce the students to the concept of threshold voltages and triggering: that the device was either in one state or another, and then use that to build a model of a neuron that illustrated the ‘all or nothing’ nature of an action potential. In the class (which turned out to be first through fourth graders) we built Play Doh models of neurons to introduce cell structure and the cell body, dendrites, and axon. We could have added LEDs to our models to make them working demonstrators, or made equivalent circuit models to illustrate the summing of IPSPs and EPSPs on dendritic fields, the course of the action potential along the cell membrane, and the cable like properties of the membrane, myelin insulation, etc.
In another summer course on wireless physics and technology, we built crystal radios, but our successful reception was limited by the lack of a long and well-grounded receiving antenna at our temporary summer school only camp location. We could have used a balloon supported wire antenna (a good science activity all by itself) and given the relatively constant signal strength available from a local medium wave broadcast station during the daylight hours, experimented with different antenna lengths and the resulting received signal strengths to make more real the concepts of wavelength and the voltage and current patterns along the length of an antenna.
Here are some ideas for high school level projects:
November 2017. I took part the "airship Design challenge held at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. We used a radio controlled mouse to tow our airship across the lab. his was another example of pure Maker "just try it and see what happens" and a lot of ideas were generated. Everyone knew what to try next time!
September 2017. We lit up the UTeach maker sign with LEDs - an exercise in simulatneous cooperatrive design and teaming skills.
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