Group items tagged

""Contraption Maker promotes STEM learning by engaging students with a series of Rube Goldberg-esque puzzles. Students choose from hundreds of parts like hamster motors, balls, and conveyor belts to fix broken contraptions. Not only do students use logic and critical thinking skills to solve puzzles, they can also create their own contraptions and share them with friends, family or even the world. For advanced students, JavaScript modding gives kids the opportunity to make the game into anything they can imagine. It's a zany digital sandbox for project-based learning." - Contraption Maker Education Page"c

"Contraption Maker provides a set of puzzles that are reminiscent of Rube Goldberg cartoons. Children use hundreds of parts like hamster motors, balls, and conveyor belts to fix broken contraptions. Moving down our knowledge funnel, kids can create their own contraptions and share them with the world. It's a digital sandbox that promotes creativity by experimenting with logical cause and effect consequences. A key component of excelling in a STEM career is learning via experimentation, which often means testing an idea, failing, reviewing the idea, and trying a new idea. Traditional teaching methods don't often have the latitude to encourage failure. However, experimentation and failure are key components in Contraption Maker. You learn by "failing" and testing new theories, and it is meant to be fun, not discouraging."

"Are you an educator who would like to try Contraption Maker in your classroom or after school program? Then email Deborah Fike (deborah@spotkin.com), Spotkin's Director of Educational Outreach, to receive free copies of Contraption Maker for your school-owned devices. You can also subscribe to our educator mailing list for up-to-date news."

Play the Fantastic Contraption game! Make a device to get the pink wheel right into the pink square. A fun online physics puzzle game!

"I have become somewhat obsessed with the concept of automata over the past month or so.  I have seen multiple iterations of cardboard automata.  The Tinkering Studio has a FANTASTIC pdf which explains the basics as well as facilitation tips for educators. I had this on my agenda to work into my makerspace this year, but it was when I saw this video that my imagination was set on fire: "

A Marble Machine is a creative ball-run contraption, made from familiar materials, designed to send a rolling marble through tubes and funnels, across tracks and bumpers, and into a catch at the end.

"Cardboard Automata are a playful way to explore simple mechanical elements such as cams, levers, and linkages, while creating a moving sculpture. This activity is easy to start but may become more and more complex as you become familiar with possible motions and imagine ways to artistically decorate your contraption. Cardboard automata use levers, cams, cam followers, linkages, and other mechanisms to make unique personalized creations."

"When I first saw these contraptions my initial reaction was how in the world would we incorporate these devices with our demanding academic curriculum? The last couple of months my instructional technology team and I have had a ball coming up with strong academic tie-ins for using MaKey MaKeys and programming with our elementary students. I was astonished how easily and naturally programming and incorporating MaKey MaKeys have been, even for first graders! Just the other day I was working with first graders who were learning about the four cardinal directions. We had them create interactive compass roses by programming a sprite in Scratch to move north, south, east or west depending on the arrow key they pressed. Some students were even able to add voice recordings to their script!"

"Forget Uber Ice Cream. If you really want to get high-tech this summer, try printing your dessert. Three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a machine that is sure to delight your inner child and tempt your sweet tooth - a 3D printer for ice cream. The trio - Kyle Hounsell, Kristine Bunker, and David Donghyun Kim - hacked a Solidoodle 3D printer and hooked it up to a Cuisinart ice cream maker and to create a contraption that offers on-demand soft serve, according to a report from 3ders.org."

" I have incredible students who love to explore, create and design.  I've spent a lot of time watching them do this and have been trying to find ways to make our new curriculum fit with their passions, instead of in spite of their passions.  So this week we began to explore design challenges. The challenges themselves are quite simple but the beauty of them is that they are using tools my students love to learn with, they were co-created with the students, and the criteria for success was determined by the students.  I provided the opportunity for them to learn this way, but they came up with the purpose.  Along the way they learned that they have to collaborate to be successful. That sometimes, even with the best laid out plans, that they aren't successful. That mistakes just lead to new learning. That perseverance is a skill, and some of us need to work hard to have some, and for some of us it comes naturally.  But above all they learned, once again, that learning is and can be student centered and fun! So what exactly were our challenges this week? The first was "The Contraption Lab""

"In this tutorial, you will learn how to make an Art Bot which is also known as a Scribblebot or Scribble Machine.  These contraptions use a vibrating or offset motor to move around in unpredictable ways. Making an Art Bot is a fun way to learn the basics of creating a simple circuit with a switch.  The best part of making these bots is that you can use repurposed and recycled materials. This project is also a great way to incorporate more Art into your STEM education program.  You can use markers, crayons, chalk and more to create one of a kind artwork."

"un LEGO computer coding for kids! Technology is a huge part of our lives today. My son loves his iPad and although we monitor his use of it, it's a part of our home. We also love LEGO® and have tons of fun building neat contraptions and gadgets with our bricks. We have played around with a couple fun ways to check out computer coding with LEGO® with and without a computer. "