Fail Gator No More!!!

Fail Gator

Last night, I was really excited because I finished the embroidery for my programmed Gator. So, I decided to go freestyle with sewing the electronics.

Fail. Didn't work at all.

On the down side, I wasted about an hour sewing, and now I have to rip out all the electronic sewing. 

On the plus side, by making the mistakes, I learned a lot about how the conductive wire, LilyTiny, LEDs, and sewable battery holder work. As soon as I finished, I realized that I should have put all the wiring on the pink piece of felt, where they'd be hidden by the green piece of felt and would fit a little better.

I used this image to help me think about my plan:

And, here's my plan:

On to try #2!

Programming, Metaphor, and Light

Lately, I've been posting a lot about other people's classes, so today I'm going to take today to share what I've been doing in my classes.

The 7th graders are starting a project this week using soft circuitry to create a symbolic, programmed object. Here's how it works:

• Prior to the project, we'd explored paper circuits, so they understand the concept of a circuit.
• To start the project, I showed students 3 examples of soft circuitry from my blog.
• Then I asked them, "Well, what might YOU make?" and shared this document with them:

(The students definitely asked me to un-nerdify the 3 bullet points & I said, "Design and make an object, plan how your circuitry and microcontrollers will work, and make sure your object is symbolic")

• I asked the students to look at the following 4 images:

• They identified each one immediately. In case you don't know the 4th one, that's the Shipley Gator.
• I explained that these 4 logos are symbols for events, characters, companies, and schools. Even though they don't have words, viewers see them and can identify a whole bunch of meaning that goes with them.
• The students then found their own logos and put them in a shared document.
• Next, I said that symbols are often more abstract than a company logo, and shared these 4 images:

• Then, they pulled out ideas of what a tree, dove, gravestone, and light might symbolize, and we talked about how they might choose a corporate-ish symbol or a symbolic object - it was completely up to them.
• Next, I gave the students all the resources, and had students store them in plastic bags:
  
• The items they received were:
• A battery holder
• A battery
• 2 LED lights
• a LilyTiny (We spent a while talking about the LilyTiny and what it can do)
• The items I had in reserve were:
• Conductive thread
• Embroidery floss
• Sewing Needles
• A lot of felt
• Scissors
• Finally, we talked about the theory of design (Using all available resources to make things happen) and what they might need to know and do in order to bring their project to completion.

Monday was the first day . . . I can't wait to see what they come up with!