Last year I started a robotics class at P.S. 230 through New York Cares. I’d been volunteering on a cooking project with third graders there for a few months worth of Saturdays. I ran into the principal one day and mentioned to her that I teach electrical engineering at P.S. 24 every once every week and hey, why not do something at P.S. 230 too? The school has Lego kits, but they were old RCX kits that didn’t work so well, especially with the software interface. We pushed forward anyway and everyone had a good time. They made robotic flower pots and had a wiffle ball competition. I mentioned the robotics class to the principal of P.S. 24 — if both schools had problem-free robotics kits, we could have competitions. This year we have a class at both schools.
The kids built music robots for the first gathering, more of an art show than a competition. We were rushed for time, but most of the kids ended up with a robot. We used random things from my kitchen and bookshelf to mix in for sounds. There are photos and videos for most of the robots here. My personal favorite was the robot that danced the worm and the one that chimed on steel bolts. The kids were enjoying it, but I could tell some wanted something more energetic.
The kids eyes lit up when I told them about our next project, balloon popping robots. I tried not to mention it to anyone at the school because I didn’t want them to say no. The librarian thought needles might be too dangerous because they’re small and will get lost all over the classroom, so we went with nails. Nails alone aren’t enough to pop a balloon, so we sharpened them with a dremel. No one employed by the school mentioned a problem with it after seeing the razor toothed robots the kids designed.
The competition went so-so. Time constraints were a problem again, so no one got a chance to give their robots a good test. On top of that, the day of the competition I bought balloons that were tougher to pop than the balloons everyone used for testing, but we had enough easy-to-pop water balloons for a more enjoyable second round. The kids were super excited when all the robots were in the pen trying to pop balloons.
All the New York Cares volunteers and my friends at Daylife were a huge help. None of this would have been possible without them. Building robots with Legos isn’t easy as it sounds. It takes a lot of patience and self-control to work with some of the kids. We have more time and new ideas, so maybe the next go around will be closer to how I envisioned it.
Last summer, students in the PAZ Summer Camp at P.S. 24 formed the Cartography Club. We learned about different kinds of maps and set out to create a photo map of Sunset Park. We have all sorts of content for the website, but I haven’t gotten around to scanning it all in yet. In the mean time, check out the photos on google maps.
They took about a thousand photos on different kinds of cameras (a couple point-and-shoot digitals, a 35mm SLR, a medium format Holga, and a Mino Flip for video). I scanned in the negatives and they selected photos to put on the website. We also have map overlays, student bios, and videos.
The aerials shots were created by floating the Mino Flip into the sky on about 40 tethered balloons. The wind kept blowing the balloons down and shaking the camera, but we were able to find some good frames in the videos. The kids said they asked everyone if they could take their photo for their website, but if you’re in the photos and you prefer not to be, let me know and I’ll take it down.
The third graders finished their second set of game programming lessons this week. Over all it went well. They’re comfortable enough with the Scratch interface toh create their own animations and games. One of the students works on projects at home when her computer isn’t busted. I talked them through creating pong while a couple second graders built play doh models for claymation. They were able to figure everything out except the angles requires to turn the ball around.
The third graders might be burning out on programming for the time being. They were very distracted with the second graders claymation, so I’m going to rotate out the second graders for a couple weeks to let the third graders work on claymation. Next time I have them working with Scratch, I’ll try to get them to make a game of their own design. They haven’t been too good with debugging or multi-sprite projects, but they’re finally at point where they can do medium sized projects. The drawing mechanism is frustrating to them. Using their fingers on a SMART board might do the trick. In the mean time, I’ll let them work in 3D using clay.
My first set of fifth graders finished up their LED necklaces today. We modified a project from Fashion Geek. The original necklace called for smaller, dimmer LEDs controlled by a photoresistor to give them an always-glowing look based on ambient light, but the girls wanted to use bright and colorful lights.
CX loves soldering. She left the video game design class because it wasn’t exciting for her. I asked why soldering was so captivating: “I just like trying to keep my hands steady.” She’s probably the most consistent of all the kids I’ve worked with. Last year in PAZ she always worked hard to finish her projects when most kids goofed around.
I’m not as fortunate with one of the other kids. She does not like soldering at all. I eventually coax her into it, but her hands shake all over the place. She’s not too good with sewing either. I might hold a week long sewing class so kids get a grasp of the basics.
Overall I’d say the project was a success. The kids came out with working necklaces. It took three days longer than expected, but I just doubled up and had third graders work on designing computer animations and games.
I started showing KM videos from Diana Eng’s Fairytale Fashion to give her something to do while other kids solder. She’s excellent with a sewing machine and built one of the piano gloves last year. The first couple week of Fairytale Fashion are based around deployable structures. Here’s what she came up with:
My favorite one is the shirt with a hidden skirt around the waist. I’m not sure how the middle skirt would work. It might make mroe sense as a top that transforms into wings. We’re heading to the open studio session this weekend at Eyebeam. They’re all mesmerized by the LED for the necklaces we’re been working on, so it’ll be interesting to see how they react to all the technology at the studio.
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