DIY

2nd Grade Design Challenges

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Brown Bag Challenge

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, I saw a tweet that encompassed some of my favorite concepts of a maker mindset. In the tweet, Angie O’ Malley, a STEAM educator in Washington(and a FABLearn Fellow), challenged her #elemakers to make robots with super powers ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. (High five, Angie!) By handing kids a simple bag of random materials, students were challenged to create a robot with the everyday materials in front of them.  I loved how she added the context of super powers, because it gave the students just enough direction (and constraint) to all make completely different and amazing robots.

I knew that I had to see what our Mason students would make with this fun challenge, but I also wanted to do this with FIVE different 2nd grade classes. So and I decided to add teaching the importance of recycling and re-use, and told students up front that they would build robots, snap a picture, and then dis-assemble after building so the next group could re-use the same materials.

The robots they made were super adorable. I took pictures and stored them in a Googledoc for each teacher with the intent that students could write about their robots in the future. (I’m also thinking if time allowed, it would be fun to have students make a Chatterpix of their robot describing its super powers.)

Here are some of their amazing creations!

Mrs. Denny’s sweet students wrote me thank you notes for “letting” them make robots in the library.

Designing an Accessible Playground

After seeing Angie’s great tweet about robots, I delved further into her work and discovered her amazing blog: Elementary Innovators.  She has so many great ideas posted, but one that really stuck out was a post about designing accessible playground equipment. Since we might be getting new playground equipment at Mason, I thought it would be great for our 2nd graders to design a new playground that is accessible for ALL of our students.

Using the design thinking process, we discussed user needs and the concept of accessibility. We asked students to brainstorm ideas out loud and on paper, and then sketch out accessible playground ideas.

Ideas included:

  • Lower Monkey bars so a student in a wheelchair could use them
  • Lower Monkey bars with a platform underneath that would move the wheelchair as the user “swung” across the bars
  • Zip line swings
  • An elevator to the slide
  • A moving sidewalk to the Playscape
  • A computer talker – A student wanted a computer so that one of our nonverbal students could tap on the computer to have it speak and tell others where he wants to play.
  • A Wheelchair zipline that lifts the chair safely
  • A lift to put a child in a swing
  • An accessible trampoline- a platform for a wheelchair that bounces the rider while they are safely in their chair.
  • And some students had super complicated ideas that were just plain awesome like this dinosaur with a slide coming out of it’s mouth!

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Listen to this student talk about her design:

Little people have pretty amazing ideas! I can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Pinecrest Innovation Institute- Wrap Up

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I just got back from Florida and had so much fun facilitating a “Low Floor High Ceiling Workshop” alongside Josh Burker! Josh built this amazing wiki as a resource to which I added ideas for Makey Makey and Paper Circuits.

We stayed true to our maker facilitator background and held this workshop in an open-ended format and let the learners guide their own work. So it was a BLAST! Check out some snapshots of participant’s learning:

Marble runs are always satisfying!

One of my favorite things during the workshop was seeing so many makers make my favorite paper circuit activity from the #bigmakerbook.  While makers were attempting this complicated circuitry, I had an a-ha moment. Even though paper circuits might not seem open-ended, it is a great activity to introduce tinkering, problem-solving, and de-bugging. When makers craft paper circuits, they often have only one or two lights that work at first, so this type of making forces them to tinker to problem solve why their connections aren’t creating closed circuits. Plus, even if they are following a template, the nature of paper circuits allows for some open-ended creativity for incorporating light and interactivity. (Check out this birthday card from one of our workshop attendees!) Lastly, this paper circuit can now be animated with Jie’s new programmable paper circuit “Love to Code” board!!!

Our participants even got to see Josh and I go into mad maker mode when he designed a whimsical Makey Makey instrument inside the wind tunnel, and I hacked a computer fan for Makey Makey spin art. Watch the whole Instagram below:

More on take apart and re-inventing here:

The next day I gave my Keynote on Making and Literacy and explained how Invention Literacy can immerse students in the maker mindset.

I also enjoyed attending sessions and getting even more resources for making with cardboard from Kris Swanson and Vicki Spitalnick!  (And I’m ever so thankful for Kris showing me this vectorizer so I can get my Watercolorbot to be more functional! )

You should add the Pinecrest Innovation Institute to your yearly conference schedule! The Fort Lauderdale campus is beautiful and there will be great learning for all to enjoy. (Plus awesome maker educators like Diana Rendina and Krissy Venosdale are in attendance.)