Patience

Patience

Everyone who has been to one of the mini maker fridays has seen chaos in tinkering. But they are called mini maker fridays for a reason. With real makers, the truth is much deeper. 

Today, we went up to the PRISM room for making, and guess what? We got packets on design thinking, not making! We started working on them, and sure enough, they were boring. We had to interview partners, state problems, all that boring stuff. Even with moral-boosters, it was booooring... until you got to step 8. Then it was... 

HAVE FUN BUILDING!!!! 

Design Thinking as taught at Stanford's d.school

Our middle school Maker Ambassadors are attempting to use Stanford's d.school philosophy of design thinking to their creations in order to explore out of the box thinking and empathy.  We are changing our mindset to focus on the process and emphasizing that we must incorporate diverse perspectives to solve human needs. As we work through the stages, the students will be blogging to share their experiences. It is going to be messy and we will push through it together. 

Looking for resources?

Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit

d school K-12 lab wiki

K-12 Lab Network Resource Guide 

They will be working through their first design challenge to construct a winter wonderland while raising awareness about an important issue. 

Maker Winter Wonderland 12.8-12.23

What visions come to mind when you think of winter?

Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova saw:

The city is caught in the grip of ice--
Trees, walls, snow, are as under glass.
Over crystals, I and the patterned sleighs 
Go our separate, unsteady ways.

For Robert Frost it was,

Whose woods these are I think I know. 
His house is in the village though; 
He will not see me stopping here 
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 

My little horse must think it queer 
To stop without a farmhouse near 
Between the woods and frozen lake 
The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake 
To ask if there is some mistake. 
The only other sound’s the sweep 
Of easy wind and downy flake. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 
But I have promises to keep, 
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep.

What do you see? Collaborate with a small group of 2-3 makers to create a winter scene that promotes awareness about an issue. Use the littleBits, Legos, Play-Doh, and anything else you might need to design our own Maker Winter Wonderland. The choices are yours and you can use items from the room and home. 

"Do you want to build a snowman?" I bet you can find some cool instructables. Now is the time to upcycle items we might normally thrown in a recycling container. 

What questions do you have for me and for your partners?

Draft out a quick KWLHAQ chart to brainstorm some ideas! We will be applying design thinking to this next week, but think about the different options. 

Hour of Code

Next week is Hour of Code. We are going to start today during Maker Friday and you can tinker around with all of the tutorials and lessons over the course of the week. Computers are here to stay. You use smart phones and computers all the time. Let's learn their language!

http://code.org/learn

http://code.org/learn/beyond

http://scratch.mit.edu/hoc2014/

Little Bit Crazy

People are crazy about LittleBits! On Friday, a flood of people came during Flex period to have fun with the LittleBits pack up in 814. We were having fun building the Super Loud Motion Buzzer to annoy people that entered, and positioned it. Then, a horde of people rushed into the room. They were greeted by the super loud buzzer, which definitely made them annoyed! (See making little bits roar more) There was a huge rush of students, so the modules were taken quick. We started with, "Where's the timeout! I need a pulse! Where is a power module!"
Unlike some other days, when the table was quiet and calm (a. k. a. Buzzers going crazy and lights flashing), this time, there were hands crawling over hands to get to the Little Bits, and people stealing Bits. Soon, the Power Modules ran out, and people were like, "I need a power module!"
All the circuits caused a lot of commotion. There were lights flashing, buzzers buzzing, and fans blowing air. People were experimenting with DC motors, and people were randomly adding modules to modules. But just then, the Bell rang. Everyone rushed to clean up (a bad job) and ran out, ready to come back to experiment with more modules.

Making Little Bits Roar MORE

If you thought the halloween hack was crazy, this week was even worse. When I popped into the room at the beginning of flex, there were a bunch of LittleBits on the table. Guess what was the most in-demand thing at the table? Of course you guessed it, it was the buzzer.
Last week, there was a lot of light-flickering as us Makers made flickering lights, fans, and more. But this week, the only thing us Makers were thinking was... BUZZERS BUZZERS I WANT ONE TO ANNOY EVERYONE
So my big goal was to make a machine to annoy everyone (will fly with the 4th graders), so I grabbed a power supply, buzzer, button, and a whole bunch of wires. My goal? To make a remote access buzzer, with one end on the Maker desk, the other end near the entrance, and so I could annoy everyone with the machine of buzzing doom. Running wires along the desk was boring, and when I finished, it didn't work! Then I discovered something called the motion sensor, which was awesome.
The buzzer was finished with a motion sensor connected to three buzzers. When anything moved, the circuit went BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I put in the hallway and when some seventh graders walked past, it went BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They said to themselves, "Is it a fire alarm?"

Making Little Bits Roar

Here at 814, we were having fun! Some other makers and I were waiting at the small computer lab but nobody came, so we just went up to 814. Up there, @Oliver Z was spamming the #LittleBits. He was putting the noise-making blocks and I was just like, wow. Some Scenario writers were assembled, and they were begging for Oliver to stop. Did he? Nope. In fact, he added more. I grabbed a starting block and started making. Dr. MC said "Make a hand buzzer, Leo can do it!" I grabbed my pieces and had a simple hand buzzer. Three minutes later there was a volume slide, an on and off button, and a toggle switch. I brought it outside and got angry looks from hardworking Scenario Writers and seventh graders. Eventually, Dr. MC told me to go back and so I went back in while Oliver was the most hated maker. The buzzers were buzzing, scenario writers were screaming, just your regular Mini-Maker Friday. I began to create V.2.0.0, I quickly took of the slide and the butten and I just kept my little on-off switch. Meanwhile, Leo and Oliver were making the loudest possible buzzer, Sharanya and Sundar were making a hand buzzer, and Katherine was doing something else. I attached my simple contraption to the battery. It sounded the same as before, but it didn't feel the same, it was lighter and it was blowing air on my face. Why? I had added a fan! I walked outside once again but a scenario writer shooed me away. I tried to add another fan but only one fan worked! I needed more power. Sundar helped me, but before we could make V.3.0.0, the bell rang. I cleaned up my pieces and left. Today was great because we were able to just play around with little bits and learn how to use them.