4_ Makerspaces in schools and beyond the classroom

Integration of multidisciplinary content and computational thinking through educational projects that use electronics to interact with the real world.

For this week's asignment we were asked to use some development board to sense something in our classes (noise / light / movement) and produce some kind of response (audio, light, movement).

The proyect I'm presenting is one I built and used some time ago. It is built around the micro:bit board and its goal is to get the students' attention and curiosity and get them trying to "guess" the working of the system without knowing how it is built. From there we can begin discussing about sensors, what they know about them, how they work, what types of sensors exist, and how can the information from one board be transmitted to another one.

The project uses 2 micro:bit boards. One (the transmitter) is programmed to send a radio message when shaken (detected by the onboard accelerometer). The other board (the receptor) is programmed to play back some sounds and shine its LEDs when receiving a message. For this it uses its onboard buzzer and LED matrix. For communications between the boards a radio module is used - this module is also part of the micro:bit board.


The transmitter board is hidden inside a glove, and when I present the system to the students I do it as some kind of magic act. I ask one of the to hold the receiver board, and quickly point (shake) my emitter hand at the receiver board. What happens then is that the receiver comes alive and makes sound and animations, as if by magic! After doing it a couple of times with different volunteers I reveal the parts of the system inside the glove, and have them try it many times, trying to find different ways of triggering the effect, or even trying to move the glove without triggering it, in order to find the limits of the system.

You can see the project in action on the following video

If you want to replicate this project you can use the following links to get the code for both the transmitter and the receiver.

On makerspaces and interdisciplinary work

During the past couple of years we've been trying to consolidate a more interdisciplinary oriented way of working at my school. And for this, our STEAM lab has been a great aid. This place, a small makerspace, has given the students the tools but more importantly the space to investigate, design, build and test all kinds of creations. It has also made possible for other teachers to think differently about project based work and what students can do when left to exercise their imagination and autonomy.

Right now this space is undergoing a renovation - it will have new furniture, more storage space and it will be powered by a grid of solar panels! Here are some renders of how it should look like when finished. Here you will also find a few images of a private Makerspace I've been setting up. The idea is to have this space available to everyone with some project or idea who needs the tools, space or knowledge to complete his or her vision.


The task for the the second week... (WIP)

The Field Activity for module 4 was to to create a lesson plan involving robotics, physical computing or programming and test it in real educational environment. The lesson plan should include certain aspect of interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity.

You can review the lesson plan I created for this Field Activity using this link.

Below you will find a small video showing some of the finished models built by my students as part of the activity.