Bananas About STEMx - Applications of Fruit and High Technology in 21st Century Learning
Presented by Nathan Beveridge at V2 Conference 2013 (v2training.com.au)
Friday the 8th of November 2013 - State Library Queensland.
For over a 100 years Australian hobbyists have been tinkering with home-brew electronics and learning through experimentation, with many STEM geeks learning to solder at the kitchen table while trying with varying levels of success to construct Dick Smith kits or amateur radio projects. This spirit of tinkering and hands on learning through experimentation is alive and well in 2013 but is much more accessible (and safe!) for teachers to implement in their classrooms and with extra-curricular groups.
Heard about Arduino, MaKeyMaKey, 3D Printing or Wearable Technology and wondered what all the buzz is about? Wondered if you and your students might be able to learn how to design, construct and program 'real' electronics and invent stuff? Do you have some 'techy' students that you would like to get started on some extended independent projects and are looking for resources? Wondering what bananas could have to do with electronics? This session is for you!
Nathan Beveridge - Bananas about STEMx - Applications of fruit and high technology in 21st century learning - V2 Conference 2013
1. License notice
At this time this work is available to you as a friend of V2 Training
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21st century learning by Nathan Beveridge is licensed under
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Thanks for your cooperation with this.
Nathan Beveridge
n.beveridge@staidans.qld.edu.au
18. Arduino…
Arduino is an open-source electronics
prototyping platform based on flexible,
easy-to-use hardware and software.
It's intended for artists, designers,
hobbyists and anyone interested in
creating interactive objects or
environments.
I am Nathan Beveridge and I work at two Independent girls’ schools here in Brisbane. What I think works in education is not necessarily what is going on in the mainstream curriculum…but what is possible in the extra-curricular, in particular open ended social constructivist STEMx based activities. If you want to feel excited and see students achieve the really amazing things you imagined when you were a pre-service teacher… get involved in extra-curricular activities and tinker with tech yourself.
Delahaye – shadow system and legitimate system. Seeking bounded instability. Too far either way isn’t good and that finding a balance with ‘bounded instability’ is the sweet spot.
For the techies ATMega32u4 microcontroller There are another 12 inputs on the back, 6 for keyboard keys, and 6 for mouse motion, which you can access with jumpers via the female headers, paper clips, or by alligator clipping creatively around the headers. For sensing closed switches on the digital input pins, high resistance switching is used to make it so you can close a switch even through materials like your skin, leaves, and play-doh. We use a pull-up resistor of 22 mega ohms.
You as teachers need to play in the shadow system… then you can bring things into the legitimate system. Where better to do that than with extra-curricular groups.You will get to know your students and get to test out ideas.
MaKeyMaKey using pencil drawn controller for MinecraftLunchtime tinkering.
Testing out MaKeyMaKey piano stairs in our science building. The metal strips holding the rubber grip plates were used as the conductor. Students noticed that depending on the environmental conditions it often worked through the wooden stairs too. Gave them a good chance to learn to watch out for short circuits such as the metal stair supporting structure connecting through to the earth connection, etc.
This is version two of the piano stairs set up for a higher traffic event. Wide metallic tape was used to make the connections more durable and easier for people to identify.
MaKeyMaKey moved into the mainstream. This is an example of a Year 12 students art work for assessment that was created as an interactive installation using the MaKeyMaKey. Viewers of her artwork would stand on the bath mat which acted as the ground, and touched interactive (conductive) areas of the art work that were connected to the MaKeyMaKey hidden behind. The student used Audacity to record her voice in character that was then inserted into the programming environment Scratch to be triggered when the artwork was touched.
For the techies ATMega32u4 microcontroller There are another 12 inputs on the back, 6 for keyboard keys, and 6 for mouse motion, which you can access with jumpers via the female headers, paper clips, or by alligator clipping creatively around the headers. For sensing closed switches on the digital input pins, we use high resistance switching to make it so you can close a switch even through materials like your skin, leaves, and play-doh. We use a pull-up resistor of 22 mega ohms.
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
Our friend the ATMega32u4 microcontroller again
AlsoAdafruit flora and Lillypad for wearable technology. Same sort of programming and microcontrollers. ATMega32u4 microcontroller. Durable and can be used in conjunction with conductive thread for hi tech fashion projects.
My home arduino tinkering using the Freetronics experimenters kit and project guides. A great way to learn about programming and electronics.
My student’s first attempt at arduino led to an explosion of learning and the creation of an amazing interactive electronics project.
My student’s blog documenting her project for the Young ICT Explorers competition.
My student’s youtube channel. She wanted to create videos documenting her arduino project so that others could learn from what she was doing, just as she had learnt from other people’s websites and videos. Really embracing the maker / hacker / techie spirit of sharing with and learning from each other to take our projects to the next level.
Andexample of my student documenting her work to share back into the community of learners.
Her creation. A glove with flex sensors on the fingers, connected to an arduinoleonardo which is emulating keypresses when certain variables are presented such as finger 1, 2, or 3 are bent to particular reading (the sensors are variable resistors and can be used to give quite precise measurements). The glove controller also has a USB mouse connected to the wrist for moving characters around the screen and triggering particular actions such as grabbing in conjunction with the flex sensors. The project controlled a game created in Gamemaker. The game also had controls made from play doh and connected to the MaKeyMaKey to add extra complexity to the game such as dropping ‘power up’ type items in the game. The whole theme of the game was encouraging making healthy food choices. She won first place in the year 6 and 7 category. This competition has opened many doors for her and given her the opportunity to attend many other events since.
AlsoAdafruit flora and Lillypad for wearable technology. Same sort of programming and microcontrollers. ATMega32u4 microcontroller. Durable and can be used in conjunction with conductive thread for hi tech fashion projects.
AlsoAdafruit flora and Lillypad for wearable technology. Same sort of programming and microcontrollers. ATMega32u4 microcontroller. Durable and can be used in conjunction with conductive thread for hi tech fashion projects.Check our adafruit.com
Decoding weather satellite images with students as the weather satellites pass overhead. Students exploring amateur radio, and learning about Doppler, satellites and all sorts of other cool stuff during lunch times.
Decoding weather satellite images with students as the weather satellites pass overhead. Students exploring amateur radio, and learning about Doppler, satellites and all sorts of other cool stuff during lunch times.
Examples of where tinkering moves into the mainstream classroom.Students in year 3 made a model of their junior school from LEGO and also in Minecraft. Also learned about 3D printing. Discovered while playing minecraft all kids of things like ratios and thinking about the proportions of things. Eg how many carpet squares in their classroom could correspond to block in minecraft.This year 3 class have also recently been named as having the having the highest average in the state on NAPLAN…. NAPLAN is may… so… I guess I can’t claim anything here…but the teacher that takes a chance and uses this type of activity obviously has other great stuff happening in her classroom
Examples of where tinkering moves into the mainstream classroom.Students in year 3 made a model of their junior school from LEGO and also in Minecraft. Also learned about 3D printing. Discovered while playing minecraft all kids of things like ratios and thinking about the proportions of things. Eg how many carpet squares in their classroom could correspond to block in minecraft.This year 3 class have also recently been named as having the having the highest average in the state on NAPLAN…. NAPLAN is in May… so… I guess I can’t claim anything here…but the teacher that takes a chance and uses this type of activity obviously has other great stuff happening in her classroom
Students started to make some other things in minecraft like a cruise ship and some decided they wanted to make the Eiffel tower. This piece of paper and model were things that they were using as references to get the scale right. Amazing mathematical and spatial work that the year 3s were doing because they loved it and because it would help solve the problems they were encountering while building.
I have extra curricular robotics group. Take a look at usfirst.org for more info on FIRST, FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Challenge. These are the most amazing things.
FIRST events are huge and exciting and give students an opportunity to be heroes of science and technology.
Take a look at usfirst.org for more info on FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Challenge. These are bigger robots for bigger students. 4 x 4 meter arena.
FIRST is global! These are pictures of the Asia Pacific Invitational at Macquarie Uni in Sydney which I was lucky enough to attend this year…. Students from so many countries brought their robots from all over the world to compete and celebrate together. Inspiring and life changing stuff!
