Simple Machines: Inclined Planes

Simple Machine Projects

We finished the first round of Simple Machine projects last week.  So much fun to see the students use so many tools and materials from the classroom: vinyl, plastic, wood, Styrofoam, paint...

Maze Presentations

Yesterday was my last day with my first round of 5th and 6th grade classes.  Everyone set up their marble mazes to share with their class.  Students had the opportunity to try each others' mazes, leave feedback, and self-assess their own work.  It was awesome to see the variety of creations!

Final Projects

These girls have been working hard on their final project---Can you guess what it is?

Power Tool Wednesday

Students in my 7th and 8th grades classes have been given the task of creating something that moves. They must incorporate at least one of the simple machines we studied and one element of the project must be 3-D printed.   Today everyone seemed to need power tools!

Woodworking with 5th & 6th grade

My fifth and sixth grade classes are well into their marble maze projects.  Most have finished planning and are onto cutting and sanding the walls for their mazes.  So much fun to watch these come together!

3-D Design

My seventh and eighth graders started off the year with 3-d design.  Using Project Ignite students learned the basics of Tinkercad.  Their first task was to create a simple 3-D printed nametag using some of the skills they learned.  I love how they each came up with a unique design.  Here are the latest ones, hot off the printer.  They will be touching them up with the Dremel tomorrow!

Weeding Process

With several new classes learning to vinyl cut, I have been teaching them all how to "weed" their designs.  We did a little time lapse video of the process yesterday.

LED Experimentation

Some of the third and fourth grade students come to Design Tech with a little experience using LEDs and coin cell batteries.  In addition to learning about circuitry, one of my goals for them is to understand how the batteries power the LEDs.  One of the first experiments we do is testing different colors and numbers of LEDs.  So much fun hearing their predictions and "ah-has".

• I think that you can use more cool colors with one battery
• The red ones are brightest
• The white ones take all the power from the other ones
• Green and blue work together, but green and red don't

Index Card Towers

Game Making

Game Making!

Puppets with the Green Screen

The students had an interesting idea yesterday.  What if they were to wear the green suits and use puppets in the video?  Here is the first attempt...hoping to continue to play with this idea tomorrow!

Green Screen Fun!

The week before vacation at Williston Central School is Theme Week.  One of the workshops I am offering is Photo Booth Fun.  I have lots of props, including a green inflatable suit as well as a spandex bodysuit.  We are having a blast using DoInk to experiment with the effects for both photos and videos!

Final Vinyl Projects

These kids impress me every day with what they create!

New Class Experiments with Makey Makeys

First day experimenting with Makey Makeys for my new class.  So much fun to see what they come up with!

Helping Harry

The third and fourth graders had fun with another design challenge today.  A little creature named "Harry" visited our classroom and wanted to be placed where he could see the whole room.  Each group was given a few materials and asked to create a perch for Harry to be able to see the whole classroom.  I loved seeing them work through this together!

New Video Games and Controllers

It is always so much fun to see what each new class comes up with!