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! 

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

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." 

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."