Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs. In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year. Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home. I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are
I’ve got a brief reprieve tonight to write this post so I’m taking advantage of it. Otherwise, it won’t happen until 2019.
In our physics classroom, one of the goals is to have students use maker projects to practice the design and engineering process. Some of these projects have included LittleBits powered cars and boats. Most of these projects have been created using materials students brought in by students like plastic cups, CDs, popsicle sticks, and the like. So the ultimate construction process tended to be fairly imprecise.
This year our school has a new Fabrication Lab with a variety of different tools which students can use to create. These included (but are not limited to) 3D printers, laser cutter, video production room, and lots of CNC tools for use on woods, plastics, and metals.
There are so many possibilities in this space. As this is a new space, our Tech Ed department was looking for classes to be guinea pigs in the space. So, my co-teacher Andelee Espinosa and I decided to jump in as a way to make our maker challenges more substantial in their production.
The specific project we looked to adapt was out Sphero Chariot. A Sphero is a programmable robot sphere. There are chariots sold by the manufactures of the Sphero. But as a maker challenge, I have students work in groups to construct their own. The chariot must hold a rider of at least 50 grams and carry the rider around a course. The Sphero however cannot be manually controlled. Groups must code a program for their Sphero to travel around the course. In the past, these chariots have been constructed of inexpensive materials like straws, popsicle sticks, CDs, etc. With the ability to create in the FabLab, we wanted to step up the challenge.
With all of the different equipment available in the FabLab, we had to narrow down what we wanted. Tom Juran is one of the FabLab gurus at our school. Andelee and I sat down with him to plan out exactly what we were going to do. He recommended that we look at 2 pieces of equipment that would be easier to design and create with. Those were the 3D printers and Laser Cutter.
The specific project we looked to adapt was out Sphero Chariot. A Sphero is a programmable robot sphere. There are chariots sold by the manufactures of the Sphero. But as a maker challenge, I have students work in groups to construct their own. The chariot must hold a rider of at least 50 grams and carry the rider around a course. The Sphero however cannot be manually controlled. Groups must code a program for their Sphero to travel around the course. In the past, these chariots have been constructed of inexpensive materials like straws, popsicle sticks, CDs, etc. With the ability to create in the FabLab, we wanted to step up the challenge.
With all of the different equipment available in the FabLab, we had to narrow down what we wanted. Tom Juran is one of the FabLab gurus at our school. Andelee and I sat down with him to plan out exactly what we were going to do. He recommended that we look at 2 pieces of equipment that would be easier to design and create with. Those were the 3D printers and Laser Cutter.
So our construction requirement for each group was to create at least one 3D printed piece and one laser cut piece for their chariot.
Since neither Andelee or I are not experts at 3D printing or laser cutting, Tom was able to take on the lead role in teaching the students about the process required to create these pieces. He was able to introduce our students (and us) to the equipment and the software required to produce functional parts.
As this was the first time doing this, the process was a bit messy. On day 1, we introduced the challenge and had students start drawing up an initial design. Day 2, we toured the FabLab and students began thinking about what parts of their initial design could be 3D printed or laser cut. On day 3, groups were tasked to start working on their pieces. This required creating diagrams with precise dimensions. Tom was able to walk students through how to use Vectr to create the files for the pieces that would be laser cut piece. For the 3D printing, there was not enough time for students to learn the software required to design their pieces from scratch. So, they partnered with one of our Project Lead the Way classes. The PLTW students created the 3D models from the physics students' initial sketches. The physics students played the role of the customer to the PLTW students in a sit down meeting and approved the design or asked for modifications. Once the 3D designs were approved, they were sent to the printer.
The biggest challenge for us as teachers during this part of the process was keeping tabs on the progress of all the different groups. Andelee is an exceptional organizer and planner. She saw this gap and designed a quick daily check-in sheet with which to meet with each group. She broke down the groups into different roles: Laser Cutter, 3D modeler, and Programmer. Being able to keep tabs on each group definitely helped the process along.
The biggest bottleneck in this process was the actual fabrication of the products. Once the designs were complete and ready to be produced, it took about 2 days to get them done. For these 2 days, students were primarily waiting their turn to fabricate their pieces. In the future, these days would be best served as days where we could continue with content pieces while groups took turns going to the FabLab to manufacture their products.
Even through we had assigned a member to be a programmer of the Sphero, it really couldn’t be done until after the project was done. In order to code the Spheros, we used the SpheroEDU app on iPads. Students used block coding to navigate the following course:
Students programmed each path with a degree heading, a speed, and a time.
Since neither Andelee or I are not experts at 3D printing or laser cutting, Tom was able to take on the lead role in teaching the students about the process required to create these pieces. He was able to introduce our students (and us) to the equipment and the software required to produce functional parts.
As this was the first time doing this, the process was a bit messy. On day 1, we introduced the challenge and had students start drawing up an initial design. Day 2, we toured the FabLab and students began thinking about what parts of their initial design could be 3D printed or laser cut. On day 3, groups were tasked to start working on their pieces. This required creating diagrams with precise dimensions. Tom was able to walk students through how to use Vectr to create the files for the pieces that would be laser cut piece. For the 3D printing, there was not enough time for students to learn the software required to design their pieces from scratch. So, they partnered with one of our Project Lead the Way classes. The PLTW students created the 3D models from the physics students' initial sketches. The physics students played the role of the customer to the PLTW students in a sit down meeting and approved the design or asked for modifications. Once the 3D designs were approved, they were sent to the printer.
The biggest challenge for us as teachers during this part of the process was keeping tabs on the progress of all the different groups. Andelee is an exceptional organizer and planner. She saw this gap and designed a quick daily check-in sheet with which to meet with each group. She broke down the groups into different roles: Laser Cutter, 3D modeler, and Programmer. Being able to keep tabs on each group definitely helped the process along.
The biggest bottleneck in this process was the actual fabrication of the products. Once the designs were complete and ready to be produced, it took about 2 days to get them done. For these 2 days, students were primarily waiting their turn to fabricate their pieces. In the future, these days would be best served as days where we could continue with content pieces while groups took turns going to the FabLab to manufacture their products.
Even through we had assigned a member to be a programmer of the Sphero, it really couldn’t be done until after the project was done. In order to code the Spheros, we used the SpheroEDU app on iPads. Students used block coding to navigate the following course:
Students programmed each path with a degree heading, a speed, and a time.
This required students to first determine the linear average velocity and then translate that into the Sphero speed setting. Then students calculated the time required to go through each path of the course by using the formula time = displacement / velocity. The code would not be perfect the first time. So, students were required to do a bit of tweaking of their code to get the chariot to travel through the course.
The point of this activity was to get students some hands on experience with the fabrication equipment while investigating physics concepts of velocity, acceleration, and electromagnetic waves. All the chariots constructed by the students worked very well. We could have spent a lot more time on the programming piece of the project. But, my other 3 physics classes were not doing the FabLab construction of the chariot and were almost a week ahead. So, we had to cut the time allowed for programming. So while all of our students had working chariots, they didn’t have the time required to efficiently program their chariots to go through the whole course. To help close out the project with some excitement, we decided to have a drag race between the different chariots to see which was the fastest. The good news is that they all made it past the finish line.
The point of this activity was to get students some hands on experience with the fabrication equipment while investigating physics concepts of velocity, acceleration, and electromagnetic waves. All the chariots constructed by the students worked very well. We could have spent a lot more time on the programming piece of the project. But, my other 3 physics classes were not doing the FabLab construction of the chariot and were almost a week ahead. So, we had to cut the time allowed for programming. So while all of our students had working chariots, they didn’t have the time required to efficiently program their chariots to go through the whole course. To help close out the project with some excitement, we decided to have a drag race between the different chariots to see which was the fastest. The good news is that they all made it past the finish line.
It was a wonderful activity that could never have occurred without the collaboration of Tom Juran, John Stroschein (PLTW teacher), Andelee Espinosa, and the willingness of our students to try something a little bit different. Looking forward to all of the possibilities in the FabLab that I can think of and the ones our students will uncover.
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