Paper Cup machines, Edison robots and digital technologies

It has been a busy week developing a range of ideas for the MOVING module class. We have moved away from scratch and the development of algorithms that are being laser cut this week, through to more hands on activities where students have opportunities to be curious and creative.

It started with coffee cups, with other stuff added in. Students created their own paper cup machine that they used to see if they could develop some interesting patterns. One thing that they talked about was all the testing that they did flattened the coin batteries that we were using.

Classroom Post

A pretty great lesson where large amounts of learning, laughter and fun of machines doing some pretty weird things.

This lead to students being able to compare their paper cup machines to robots today.

The kit, Edison Robots and LEGO

Year 13 working along side Year 9 and 10 exploring the edison robot and potential uses

Classroom post

The edison robots provided a good platform for students to learn how to develop and test ideas as part of the Computational Thinking Progress Outcome today. Having an opportunity to work in pairs to design a way for the pen to be held on the robot through to programming and testing the ideas out. Students were required to develop three patterns with their time today. This gave them the opportunity to try out different ideas. We used the the EdWare programming where just in time learning supported students to develop code, figure out how to upload the code to the edison robot and also trouble shoot fail codes. It is amazing how many of the students had there volume turned to mute.

We are continuing to use these for the next couple of weeks. The reason is that want students to develop cultural patterns using computers.

We have been looking at different ideas for holding the felts, however the hole is too small on this. But it has potential. The comments from students who liked the fact that we were using LEGO to develop the mechanisms to hold the felts. Even students who were not part of the class today and in other areas commented that they could hear the lego being tipped out and wished that they could join in the learning today.

Opportunity to develop Internet of Things smart school

Last year I bought a thinxtra kit and thought about how I could use it to develop aspects of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum as well as provide opportunities for students to provide new information about our community.

https://www.thinxtra.com/smart-school/
This initiative falls in-line with the government policy addresses to enrich the curricula, increase learning activities, step up efforts to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. This also aligns with the worldwide trend of equipping the next generation with the skills they need for the future workforce to adapt to the rapid economic, scientific and technological developments, and its challenges.

Throughout the development of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum, we have been thinking about how Internet of Things and developing a way to capture our community and the growing nature of it. Hobsonville Point is a new community developed on an old air force base. It has been under construction for the past 5 years and the school is looking for ways to link in with the community at every chance. We are already an Internet of Things building were all the data is combined with our Building Management System - http://modernniagara.com/what-we-do/building-controls/. However, as we grow we want to develop a better understanding of our environment.

The proposed solution through your pdf links in well with our school's mission statement. Innovate. Engage. Inspire.

It also links in well with the new curriculum and getting students to create and understand our own data and what it means for our community.

Getting students to think about how the might sense the environment around us, and providing us links to the community. We have the programmes in place already within our school through our Modules and SPINs to be able to provide students opportunities to develop and engage with the solution. Modules are a combination of two learning areas and two teachers, SPINs are a Special Interest class where it is one learning area and one teacher. We also have Projects were for one day a week students work to develop next ideas and understanding that links in with our community.

I look forward to hearing from you and how we can make this project work for our community and school and create a powerful linkage for the next 5 years.

UPDATE: Since emailing last night I have been contacted today and they are going to give us three kits. This is fantastic. It has also got me getting the one that I bought last year up and running and it seems that I should I activated this sooner as it was out of contract. They have since sorted this out for me and added it to our account.

The email support I have received from them has been fantastic.
Thinxtra is very supportive to help students to use technology to make a difference.

Some schools are doing some amazing things with IoT technology, like this school in Waitangi where we put up a dedicated basestation and provided Dev kits just for the schools purposes;-
https://www.thinxtra.com/2018/05/mbas/

I would suggest as a starting point for your Student’s to look at their local environment and area and see what things they could improve? e.g. could be things like monitoring air or water quality, monitoring how often a classroom gets used, monitoring pest traps around the area, if people are using parking spaces appropriately, the list goes on…

Thinxtra can help and can provide 3 x Thinxtra dev kits to the school for free to help you get started.
https://www.thinxtra.com/devicemakers-dev-kits/

These are a great starting point and before no time the students will be coming up with technology solutions solving some local problems.

API call for the data

This could be a great way to show Designing and Developing a Digital Outcome Progress Outcome 4
DDDO: Progress outcome 4
In authentic contexts, students investigate and consider possible solutions for a given context or issue. With support, they use an iterative process to design, develop, store and test digital outcomes, identifying and evaluating relevant social, ethical and end-user considerations. They use information from testing and apply appropriate tools, techniques, procedures and protocols to improve the quality of the outcomes and to ensure they are fit-for-purpose and meet end-user requirements.