Grace's Reflection

Evan's Maker Refelection

Zeke's Refelection

Ethan's Refelction

Click HERE to listen to Ethan's reflection on MakerClub and the future of the 
Lincoln MakerSpace. 

MakerNight!!

In a nutshell...it was AWESOME! 

The MakerClub student did an amazing job preparing, manning, explaining, and inspiring others at their Maker station. As you walked from space to space you could see the enthusiasm, passion, and knowledge shine through each MakerClub students. 

What was just as great was to see all the adults and children creating together. Strong community and positive culture can be difficult to build in a school. This event brought the two together. I think the video below says it all...

Stay tuned for student reflections and ideas for our school MakerSpace! 

The Final Prep

"Tinkering is a powerful form of learning by doing...One of the most endearing things about the maker movement is how many children are celebrated as heroes, leaders, and innovators." ~Invent to Learn

I am SO proud of these kiddos. So many times we do not trust what our students are capable of. We are afraid that if we give them too much freedom they will not accomplish what we expect, or they will not "meet the standard". Over the past few week's I have watched these kids go from a bit lost and confused when told to "go make" to complete concentration, innovation, and playfulness. No one is telling them what is right and what is wrong. We just say, "try it". We trust that they will figure it out on their own. And 99% of the time their ideas were better than what the adult was thinking. 

MakerNight Prep

Over the past few week's students have been preparing their space for the MakerNight. 
Students have picked what they would like to showcase at MakerNight and are in charge of preparing the space. They need to decide what materials they need, where they will set up the space and what visitors will do in their space. It was great to see the students working so well together. It makes a huge difference when students have an authentic purpose and audience. 

Students playing and testing materials for their MakerSpace activity. 

The weather in late October has been amazing. Students were able to do planning in the outdoor classroom. 

#CardboardChallenge

"The hands are the instrument of a man's intelligence" ~ Maria Montessori

This past week the MakerClub had some fun with cardboard in honor of the Imagination Foundations Global Cardboard Challenge Day. We started out the afternoon watching a short film about Caine and his cardboard arcade that started a "worldwide movement celebrating creativity, play and the power of imagination."

After the student watched the film they were extremely inspired to get to work on their own cardboard project. We had students building a cardboard version of their own favorite arcade game, some making up their own game, and some building the Eiffel Tower out of cardboard. What was even cooler than their creations, was the way students naturally worked together to make their imaginations come to life. When you look at the pictures posted below you will notice that all the kids are working with someone, or parallel playing/building. Activities like these allow kids to learn so much more than just how to build or create. You see and hear collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation, perseverance, self-direction, leadership, teamwork along with many others. 

In the top picture, you notice the younger kids in the club working
parallel to one another, which is common at this age. 

The older members are working together to build their,
games and other creations. 

Elliott's and Abe

Jeffery's Play with Sphero

Carson and littleBits

Carson took home the littleBits circuits this week. To find out more how littleBits work 

go here: http://littlebits.cc/how-it-works

Name Badges, Circuits, and Ramps

Week 2 of MakerClub had members making name tags, exploring squishy circuits, and building obstacle courses for Sphero and Abe (or Dash robot). 

The planned activity this week was to have kids make their own name badge. The kids had a good time creating their badges out of random materials such as paper, cardboard, duct tape, markers, and random small toys.  

Many of the kids had fun collaborating, communicating, and working as a team to build an obstacle course for the Sphero and Abe. The kids worked so hard getting it all built only for the Sphero to run out of juice after their first attempt :( 

(see video below) 

The other half of the group had a great time creating circuits with the littleBits and the squishy circuit kits. To make your own squishy circuits check out www.stthomas.edu/squishycircuits/

These girls were hard at work making a movie on the iPad. They worked hard all week writing the script and were very proud of the movie they made tonight during MakerClub! 
Move to be posted soon. 

Take some time to read below about some at home making that happened this past week! Hint: click on Older Post to see all the post

Lili and Abe

Lili was able to take home one of our Dash (Abe) home. 

Buron's Squishy Circuits

“I learned that one type of Play Dough allowed electricity to run through it and the other type did not.  The type made with salt and tap water allowed electricity through it and the type made with distilled water and sugar did not.

We put in LED lights into the green play dough (conductive), but had to make sure the two sides (red and black) didn’t touch each other.  Then we used the white play dough (non conductive) in between and we didn’t have to worry about it touching.

We made a ‘sushi” circuit, got two buzzers to work, and a motor to work using our conductive play dough."

 

Smarts and Squishy Circuits

"We made squishy circuits this weekend. First we had to make the conductive and insulating playdough. The conductive playdough was really easy to make, the insulating playdough was REALLY sticky and we had to use a lot of flour to get it to work. 

It took us a few tries to get the circuit to work, but that's becuase my mom did not read the directions right and we were using the conductive and insulating playdough together. Once we used only conductive playdough it worked. But then Zeke stuck too many LED's in the dough and shorted out the batteries." 

Ian and Makedo

Ian Kesterke did some cool cardboard construction with the Makedo set! 

Tabberts and Camping with Squishy Circuits

"This week we explored the squishy circuits. To be honest, we got a late start because we had to wait for mom to get the batteries we needed. We explored the lights and sounds and the rolling thing. The red light did not work but the green and blue lights were our favorite. The nose was so good. It scared mom because we used it in the camper and she thought it was the fire alarm. We made the sound every time she started her blow dryer to scare her. It was so spooky, but we forgot to cry. It was so cool, we want so many and there is a website! I want to get my own honestly. I think it's the coolest thing in the world. We hope we get Sphero this week. We don't like Makerspace, we love it."

Ethan and Sphero

"I enjoyed playing with Sphero.  I think my dog had more fun chasing it.  I made it jump the ramps.  It was hard to control at times and I got it stuck under my couch a lot.   I downloaded an app to play a spaceship shooting game which was fun to play."

Eliott and Sphero

"I played with Sphero and on the original app there was things like supply drop and missions.

Also, ninja makes Sphero look like it's off and chromo drive makes Sphero flash colors and play music. I also used the ramps with Sphero but he didn't get enough momentum to go very far.

Draw and drive is an app for Sphero it basically you can make an obstacle course and while Sphero goes it can change colors if you tell it to.

Last of all I tried macro lab another app for Sphero it basically lets you make Sphero do stuff while doing something else like change colors while flipping and spinning while flipping. 

Also, all dogs are most likely afraid of Sphero especially my dog Gracie

And that was my experience with Sphero."

Avery and Makey Makey

"We made a controller out of paper that was thin. The paper was so thin that when I drew with 
a graphite pencil it ripped the paper. We played canabalt.  We also played mario just to see if it worked. we only used the up arrow with one alligater clip. We put an up, a down, a left, and a right arrow on the paper. We went to the Makey Makey site to find the games. We also used each others hands to make the character jump in canabalt."

Let the Making Begin!

Creating with cardboard, littleBits, and Makey Makey

The Lincoln Elementary MakerSpace is off the ground!  Thanks to an Adrian Schools Education Foundation grant we are able to bring a pretty cool opportunity to our kids. Over the next few weeks, a smaller group of students (MakerClub) will work together to shape our Space. Once the MakerSpace is complete it will be open to ALL Lincoln staff and students to use!  

A MakerSpace is a place for students to let their curiosity and imagination come to life, an informal, playful, atmosphere for learning to unfold, and students to find and share their passions. A space where making, rather than consuming is the focus. A space where transdisciplinary learning, inquiry, risk-taking, tinkering, crafting, thinking, and wondering can blossom. There are no directions, no standards, no true "structure", failure is an option. For more about what a MakerSpace is, visit the MakerSpace page on this blog. 

Please take some time to check out the resources on this blog to learn more about the MakerSpace movement and please mark your calendars for our APS MakerNight on November 12th, 2015!

Legos, Dash Robot, and good old coloring! 

Some great cardboard construction.