Lessons
Check back here to find information about Michigan Maker mini-lessons!
Introductions/Orientation
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to talk about what the group will be doing throughout the year.
Materials/Resources
Shower Curtain/Butcher Paper
Notecards Post-It Notes Markers Gluesticks Double Stick Tape Journals ActivitiesIntroductions (5 minutes)
Low-Tech Social Network Activity (30 minutes) Overview of Schedule/Activities (10 minutes) Student Feedback Session (20 minutes) Wrap up (15 minutes) |
Squishy Circuits
Materials/ResourcesHomemade conductive and insulating dough
AA Batteries and battery pack with +/- wires Multi-colored LEDs 5V Motors (~30mA) Piezo Electric Buzzer Optional: crimp-on spades To find out more about Squishy Circuits, check out the University of St. Thomas Lab and see how it all got started. Look here to see videos of some MMers' awesome Squishy Circuits pigs. |
Learning ObjectivesStudents will learn more about electricity and different types of circuits. They will manipulate homemade conductive dough, energy sources, and lights, motors, or buzzers to better understand the way electricity behaves. Students will be able to talk about and define parallel & series circuits, path of least resistance, positive & negative charges, conductors & insulators, and more.
ActivitiesDay 1
Introduction (5 minutes) Model Series & Parallel Circuits (10-15 minutes) Exploration (45 minutes) Documentation (10 minutes) & Reflection (10 minutes) Day 2 Recap (5 minutes) Model working with motors & buzzers Exploration (45 minutes) Documentation (10 minutes) & Reflection (10 minutes) |
Game Design
Day OneLearning ObjectivesStudents will be able to combine the things that inspire them to create new game ideas.
MaterialsButcher paper or notebooks for brainstorming
ActivitiesIntroductory talk about games (5 minutes)
Brainstorm inspiring design, intriguing story lines, and fun games (45 minutes) Combine the design, story lines, and games in interesting ways to create a new game idea and share it with the group (25 minutes) |
Day Two
Learning ObjectivesUsing their ideas from last week, students will collaborate to determine game mechanics and present their games to a group as a short pitch. To complement this pitch, students will create visual representations of key ideas.
MaterialsScraps and random pieces for prototyping
Butcher paper ActivitiesDiscuss last week/research (5 minutes)
Construct your game mechanics and develop a prototype or "pitch" (1 hour) Rotate groups to share each "pitch" for feedback (15 minutes) Check out more photos of our Game Design days here. |
Photo-Manipulation
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to locate online content which is licensed using Creative Commons. Students will evaluate whether an image's license allows for remixing, save and edit the image using PicMonkey, and share the image with an informal citation (Title, Author, Source, License).
MaterialsActivitiesDiscussion (15 minutes)
Browse for content on Creative Commons Search and share findings (5-10 minutes) Learn about TASL citations (5 minutes) Find a CC-licensed image and remix using PicMonkey Journal reflections (10 minutes) |
Arduino
Check back later for more information about Arduino lessons or click here for sample codes
Except for where otherwise noted, contents on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Copyright 2013. Michigan Makers. Details and Exceptions
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