This year I am SUPER excited to teach a new class this year called "Engineering for Social Good". Click here for a short version of our class syllabus.

For each of the five projects I plan to facilitate in the course, I will post a similar blog post to share the successes and failures of the course as I modify it for future years.  

For our first project of the year, we are leveraging the "Drawdio", a device imagined and designed by Jay Silver. Click here and here to learn more about the Drawdio circuit and here to view Jay's incredible TED Talk. Click here to purchase your own Drawdio kit. 

After a brief  live demonstration of how the Drawdio circuit works, I provided the students with the following prompt:

In 1979, Mattel created a game called "Electronic Connection". Using your Drawdio circuit, develop a game, made in the the spiriting of Electronic Connection, that helps young learners (4-5 years old) improve their fine motor control and handwriting skills. We will then deliver the games to local Preschool and Kindergarten classrooms. Go! 

We finished prototypes today and I was absolutely blown away with the way the natural prototyping process happened seamlessly when the end user was clearly defined. The the low barrier to entry associated with this device and the "window" it opens to the subsequent learning of the interior electronics of the device make this activity one that acts as a perfect inquiry opening for this new course. 

See videos of two student prototypes in action below: 

See images of all students prototypes below: 

If you are like me as a science teacher, you simultaneously live the acronym "STEM" and are exhausted by its overuse in nearly every blog, set of state standards, or professional development seminar that comes to town (Full disclosure: I often facilitate those seminars). 
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That being said, the more I dive into the world of Robotics (second year as an FRC Mentor and long time Summer Science Camp facilitator), the more potential I see in leveraging that which we often write off as "trendy,  and that which we hold dear. 

Tools common to enrichment programs (MakeyMakey, Arduino, MicroBit etc.) can potentially be powerful tools in my/our Biology and Chemistry classes during the school year, while also engaging students in a disciplines they would not normally see embedded in traditional physical and life science courses. 
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Below are links 5 activities I have done, or plan to do,  that merge coding/electronics and biology/chemistry. Enjoy! 

#1: MakeyMakey Interactive Eukaryotic Cell 
#2: Lego Mindstorm Natural Selection Simulation
​#3: Modeling States of Matter with the MicroBit
#4: Drop Counter Hack with MakeyMakey
#5: Arduino Conductivity Probe 

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with the science educators at D211 in Chicago's Northwest Suburbs. As part of the workshop, all teachers were challenged to work in discipline specific teams to create an outline for an NGSS aligned, 5E Learning cycle. They were too good not to share! Click on the image below to access all lesson outlines. Enjoy! 

During Day 1 of the STEM portion of "Soccer & STEM Camp", campers built ball pitching machine to experiment with the process of "gearing up". After building the same machine, campers were challenged to modify their projects to change the speed and/or structure of their machine. Today, Day 2, campers will apply their knowledge of gearing to build a Robotic Dragster. See a few images of Day 1 below. 

* Click here if your are not familiar with the MakeyMakey

#1: Assistive Technology Development 

• Rather than simply developing video game controllers, empower your students to use the MakeyMakey to create Assistive Technology for individuals with various physical disabilities (Quadriplegia, Cerebral Palsy, etc.) . Click here for an example of a MakeyMakey based Assistive Technology project I implemented in my classroom last school year.

#2: Interactive Physical Models 

• Rather than building a model of the Cell, for example, out of poster board or styrofoam, combine the Scratch programming interface, and the MakeyMakey, to create an interactive cell with touch activated organelles that inform the user of structure and function. Click here to view and Instructable of a MakeyMakey interactive cell created by one of my 9th grade biology students (just one, of many possible Scratch-MakeyMakey projects). 

#3: Creative Robot Remote Controls

• Because the MakeyMakey is an extension of a keyboard, controlling only screen outputs (video games, etc.) is an obvious product limitation. Because the wireless mBot can be sent RC keystroke commands directly from a computer via the mBlock software, the MakeyMakey can be used to intercept commands, and thus, used to create unique RC systems. Click here for an playlist of  examples from my recent Science Camp. 

#4: Create a DIY MakeyMakey

• Although easy to use, the simplicity of the MakeyMakey can force and over emphasis on discussing material conductivity and circuits, rather than the architecture of the Arduino Leonardo microprocessor and pull-up resistors, that form the foundation of the MakeyMakey. Click here for a past post I made about leveraging the Arduino Leonardo to instill a deeper understanding of the Arduino and MakeyMakey. 

#5: Titration Drop Counter 

• Much like the "Interactive Physical Model" application described in #2, leveraging the MakeyMakey to facilitate tasks in the physical world is a powerful application of the device. In my chemistry class I challenged students to create titration drop counters using Scratch and MakeyMakey as a way of learning more about the titration process and volume calibration. Click here for a post a I made about the drop counter activity.