CC Creativity Club

On Monday 1 August, the third maker space session was held in room 335 at Collingwood College.

The session was attended by parents, a student teacher completing his Master’s and interested in Maker Spaces for his research, and primary school students.

Dismantling of electronic toys and computers is an activity that all new comers to the space immediately gravitate towards. Perhaps it’s the opportunity to delve into the innards of much of the technology that we are familiar with that is the attraction, given that the inner workings is not something we normally are privy to. The students seem to take great joy in the simple challenge of opening the various pieces of hardware. Thus far we have dismantled remote control cars and helicopters and many computers. The materials salvaged are being carefully sorted and stored for future use, thanks to the parents that have been regularly attending. I am hoping that we have the opportunity to dismantle some other technologies such as mobile phones, wii remotes, kinect and other gaming devices.

More resources are arriving for the space. We now have a full set of safety glasses, new soldering irons with a base, a multimeter and an electric screwdriver with a cardboard cutting attachment. More second-hand toys and computers are also being supplied. Small screwdrivers have proven to be very well used so any donations would be great. Our new multimeter has also been found to be very useful as it is used to check the status of batteries. (Why isn’t it lighting up the LED? Are they dead? What voltage should it have?)

We attempted to make the beginnings of a compressible tensegrity robot but discovered that we needed better materials to work with.

It is a simple project (straws and rubber bands for the initial part) but requires materials that will be strong enough to cope with the tension that the object relies upon to function.  The elastic bands were too short and the straws buckled under the tension.

More info here: http://makezine.com/projects/compressible-tensegrity-robot/ 

Students made use of the old laptops that have been supplied by IT to continue working on their personal scratch project; a significant production! 

Testing of the laptops continues with most refusing to turn on. Any old laptops out there in the community? Old ones are good enough for our needs as long as they are able to turn on. As mentioned last week, we will be using them for learning coding (scratch, processing, minecraft modding, gamemaker etc), and working with external programmable hardware devices like the arduino. Old laptops are perfect for our needs because we will not be running anything that requires high processing power or the latest operating system. It is also good to give these old laptops another lease of life.

I am interested in any suggestions, ideas, projects, resources, donations and funding possibilities from students, parents and teachers. I will be manning the space every Monday 3:30 – 5:30pm, unless I have other commitments to attend to.

On Monday 25 july, the second maker space session was held in room 335 at Collingwood College.

The session was attended by two parents, a student teacher completing his Master’s and interested in Maker Spaces for his research, a primary school teacher, an IT staff member and 8 students from year 2 up to year 6. The student teacher showed CC students hardware devices like the arduino (arduino.cc) and how to program this versatile little device, which is the basis of many robotic (and many other) projects.

More dismantling of electronic toys and computers took place and we reiterated what safety precautions we need to take, how to work safely with tools and the value of the materials we were able to salvage. Many of the materials can be reused in other projects and I’m hoping that this can be motivation for students to consider the up cycling value of many materials that we regularly throw out. There is also the potential for students to learn about the materials (precious metals, plastics, etc.) that are used in the production of electronics and how some of these are scarce resources. Safety glasses are now available for students to use during the dismantling process. We discovered batteries in old computers that still worked and a large heat sink that had the potential of being turned into a musical instrument!!!!

We used our new multimeter to check the battery value and to explore what the word ‘conductive’ means.

I demonstrated the creation of simple optical devices using plastic sheets (acetate) that enable the visualisation of holograms. see attached.

More info here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/No-CD-case-no-tape-3D-hologram-pyramid-the-quickes/

Old laptops have been supplied by IT. We tested some and found that some worked! We will be using them for learning coding (scratch, processing, minecraft modding, gamemaker etc), and working with external programmable hardware devices like the arduino. Old laptops are perfect for our needs because we will not be running anything that requires high processing power or the latest operating system. It is also good to give these old laptops another lease of life.

Two 5th grade students immediately began using one of the old laptops for their ongoing scratch (scratch.mit.edu) project. We now also have 3 new soldering irons for the space as well.

The space is tentatively known as the CC Creativity Club, as the intention is to explore creative applications of technology (in the broadest sense of the word). I am open to other naming possibilities as it is your space. I am also interested in any suggestions, ideas, projects, resources, donations and funding possibilities from students, parents and teachers. I will be manning the space every Monday 3:30 – 5:30pm, unless I have other commitments to attend to.