Sphero Art with a Chromebook

Our Paint Covered Spheros

For our final STEAM Parent Day in Chelsea's class we finally created a Sphero Art Mural:

Here are the instructions to save frustration when using Chromebooks with Spheros:

STEP 1: Enable the Bluetooth and connect it to a specific Sphero and have your students remember which color code they are connected to. (We had 6 spheros connected to 6 Chromebooks in the small space yous see in the videos with no problems or conflicts).

STEP 2: Add the Sphero Blockly Chrome App to your Chromebooks (I am our GAFE Admin so I added it to all of our student and teacher accounts).

STEP 3: Have the kiddos open the app and make sure they have their Sphero chosen:

STEP 4: Have the students practice using the Sphero Blockly App to code their Sphero (if they are not familiar with block coding you made need to do this with them a few times before you let them paint)

STEP 5: Find or build a box that will contain the Spheros and the paint and remind the students that they may need to put constraints on their programs.

Coding Spheros with Chromebooks is not the same as using the Tickle App on an iPad, however, it works nicely and the students get a great experience.  Oh and the paint washes right off!

Our next challenge will be Sphero Golf with the Chromebooks!

STEAM Class Reflections

A few weeks ago I wrote this post Ending the School Year on a High Note.  Above is one of the posters made by the second and third graders.  It went better than planned since I had only done this with middle schoolers before.  I loved watching the teacher in awe as her students moved silently from seat to seat and wrote thoughtful comments on each poster.  Next week we will be having our final Family STEAM Day and these will be laminated and displayed for all of the parents to admire.  Here are more pictures from the day:

Our brainstorming

Creating posters

Making up new words for STEAM

Silent Commenting

It was one of those magical years that changed the students, the teachers, the parents, and ME.

From Toothbrush to Scribble Bot

For our STEAM classes this week, I finally was able to try building scribble bots using electric toothbrushes from the Dollar Tree.  The great Ramsey Musallam gave me the idea and inspiration. Originally it was my goal to have the students cut the toothbrushes apart to get the motors out, however, after trying at home with my 10 year old son, we decided it was too daunting for the students to do (however, I did advise them to try it with a parent at home if they wanted).  Here is the process:

STEP 1: Take apart the toothbrushes - I will give you some tips but I think it is more fun if you figure it out on your own (read my last blog post about letting students struggle ;-)

• Here are some handy tools to use - my new favorite tool is PVC pipe cutters!  It also helps if you recruit help, our school board president helped me dig 10 motors out yesterday.

• Break off the head, take the bottom off and cut away!

Once you have the motor out you can decide if you want to keep your other pieces and re-purpose those in your makerspace.  

STEP 2: Create Scribble Bots - I first got the idea of scribble bots from the book, The Art of Tinkering

• I tweaked the supplies to use a swimming noodle instead of a strawberry basket container.  
• We used 9 volt batteries because that is what I had and they were WAY too powerful (they were sparking and made the wires HOT so I'm toning down the volts (or I am working on adding a resistor to tone down the voltage)

Here are some pictures of the resulting Scribble Bots from the fourth/fifth grade multi-age class I worked with.  

I will be building these with a first/second grade multi-age class tomorrow and a second/third grade class on Friday. I am also in the process of creating a hyperdoc to go with the lesson and will add it here when it is completed tomorrow before I use it.

Happy Scribbling!