2020 Winter Carnival Remix

I led two coding sessions at the middle school for their Winter Carnival again this year. I had a new collaborating teacher this time and we were in the computer lab on desktops (instead of Chromebooks).  We had a variety of ability levels and grades in attendance.  Some were brand new to Scratch and others were part of the middle school’s code club.  That’s another new thing at the middle school. Some of my former elementary Code Club members started a code club this year that happens once a week during one of their study halls. (Super proud of them for advocating for themselves)

I wanted to offer different projects than last year but projects that would still be interesting to both beginners and more advanced coders.  We settled on Flappy Parrot and Pong.  I am also really interested in Text-to-Speech and Computer Poetry Generation and my collaborating teacher is excited about Makey-Makey devices.  So we offered both of those as well although none of the middle schoolers decided to work on those types of projects.

I set up a studio in my teacher account and added a few starter projects prior to Winter Carnival. During each session, I collected the students’ Scratch usernames to add them as curators.  This didn’t always work out as some were creating accounts on the spot and then never received an email verification.  I think the issue is on our district’s end and not Scratch’s.  I think some students’ emails are locked down more than others.

Toad Dash example Flappy Parrot/Geometry Dash project

Co-teacher’s Flappy Parrot example – gradually gets harder

For those who couldn’t get their new Scratch accounts to work, we downloaded their completed Scratch 3 project to the desktop and uploaded it through my teacher account.  Once their account is activated, they’ll be able to remix it into their own account, if interested.  This is one of those technical issues that you have to work out on the fly.  I also opened the studio to accept projects from anyone temporarily.  It turns out that unconfirmed Scratch accounts can’t “share” projects.  This is not a bad policy.

I was really nervous about coding with the middle schoolers again. I’m not with them on a day-to-day basis to understand what they like. I know a lot of them but I don’t know what they are learning in their code club.  One name on the roster was a student I’d recently seen write Python code in real-time, and in front of an audience, that simulated a ball bouncing. (I know it was rehearsed performance and she had a partner, but still super impressive… Would flappy parrot or my other intro projects interest her?)

The kids were great.  They brought their creativity, enthusiasm and worked hard.  They were kind.  They helped each other and enjoyed themselves.  I had a good time with them and enjoyed seeing what they were interested in. They created impressive projects and were willing to share them with the group.  I made sure there was time at the end of each session to enjoy (play, comment & like) each other’s projects.  All but one were willing to put their “work in progress” out into the world for others to play.  Very impressive and brave for middle school kids.

During the first session, one new-to-Scratch student was looking for inspiration so I helped him add a picture of a bag of Skittles as a Sprite to his project.  I stayed to help him make the Skittles bounce around the screen.  I came back to see he had a bunch of Skittle bags bouncing around the screen.  I asked if he wanted to make a game where you have to avoid the bags of Skittles and offered him the project instructions for Space Junk. Later I showed him how to have the Skittle bags come in at staggered times to simulate increasing levels of difficulty. The longer you stay alive, the more Skittles bags are zooming around after you. Then he wanted to add a coin to collect for a score, or in this case a “Skittle”.

Skittles Escape became one of the more popular games of the day and it was made by a first-time coder.

This game of his, Skittles Escape, garnered much attention in the first session and was remixed a few times in the second session. Well done, first-time Scratcher!

Remixed Skittles Escape projects:

X Escape with Sharks

Doge escapes his Leashes

Asteroid Avoidance

Some other notable projects:

Gem Miner – cool concept game

Racer

 

And this cool take on flappy parrot:

All of the creative projects are in this studio 2020 LMS Winter Carnival. They represent the individuality of the coders who made them.  I hope I can return next year to facilitate creative coding again.

3d Printing Art Class

I’ve been working with AVA Gallery and Art Center, a local art gallery that offers a large variety of art classes, workshops, and drop-in sessions, to develop a 3d printing class for middle school students. My first class offering is a 5-week, afterschool, 2-hour class for a maximum of 8 students. AVA has a media lab with desktop computers and room to set up my class.

Media Lab

I am supplying my own 3d printers and filament. I have acquired 4 Monoprice mini delta 3d printers for use with the class.  I use a delta printer to run a demo when I’m selling my 3d printed earrings and magnets.  They are highly portable and fun to watch.  We print a different figurine during the summer farmers market each week. Kids are always stopping by to see what we are printing (adults, too).  It generates a lot of curiosity and questions about 3d printing.

Monoprice Mini Deltas running

For this first session, I have 3 students signed up, 2 girls and 1 boy.  The low number is fine with me because it gives me a chance to run through the mechanics of the class, seeing if my lessons hit or miss.  The students are young middle schoolers – 5th and 6th grade.  I know two of them as they are local and used to go to the elementary school where I work.

My plan for the 5 weeks was to start with BeetleBlocks– rings, nameplates, and Turtle-logo like pendant designs, then switch to TinkerCAD and go from there.  On the first day, I found out that only one of them liked jewelry and was excited about rings, earrings, and necklaces.  The other two, not so much.   They coded and printed rings in BeetleBlocks but weren’t interested in going through the iterative process to reprint them to fit better. Oh well.  While the rings were printing they explored BeetleBlocks, made nameplates or checked out community made designs, but then they were done.

The next week I introduced TinkerCAD.  I showed them different options for TinkerCAD and let them explore but didn’t direct them to make anything specific.  One student had a very specific figurine in mind but only a beginner’s set of skills and became frustrated. The computers in the lab are also really slow and TinkerCAD was lag-y.  I was telling them to click and breathe for a bit there. One student worked on his project from home and reported that it was quite a bit less frustrating.

TinkerCAD design worked on at home.

On the third week, I decided to introduce them to lithophanes since TinkerCAD was painful to use.  We went to http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/ and uploaded a photo.  I need to play with the settings a bit more, but Deltas print 3d lithophanes very nicely since the bases don’t move.

Lithophane photo printing vertically.

 

Next week we are going to search Thingiverse and find something to print. I hope Thingiverse isn’t laggy.  It has trouble loading projects even on a good day. I have an idea for the last week. I think we will make a mobile of our 3d prints to showcase the class and hang it in the AVA.

The students are getting skilled at running the deltas -preheating, loading the filament, extruding, printing. I’m doing the slicing and the gcode generation this time.  I’d thought to install Slic3r on the computers in the media lab and teach the students to slice and generate gcode, but I’m currently doing those steps.

A note for utilizing printer time during class:  As one project is printing, the student work on the next project to have ready to print at the beginning of the next class.  If there were more students, I’d probably have to spend more time out of class printing.