Why you Need a Popcorn Maker

Ok - I know, this is not exactly a programmable device.

But, I am assuming you want to get kids into your lab. I spent $20 on this last year and it has by far been the best piece of equipment I have added to our lab.

Why?

• Teenagers like food
• I have never in 16 years had a kid allergic to pop-corn
• It is cheap food, and I am a teacher...enough said
• As a mom I like that popcorn is relatively healthy. We eat it plain - no junk added. They grumble, but they still eat it.
• The aroma brings kids in from the hall. I have at least two kids in my classes this year that first came to the lab for the popcorn

Play - Doh Logic Gates

Still working on Logic Gates in the Cs Principles class. Today they constructed logic gates using play-doh.

OR Gate

We started we watched this video connecting logic gates, AND and OR gates to binary numbers.

Before we did the logic gates I gave them a few challenge problems. I gave them a truth table and they had to construct a logic gate to produce the result. We used the logic.ly website to demo. Want to try one? Here you go:

Then they made logic gates with play-doh. The materials are fairly cheap. The most expensive part are the batteries and the battery holders (these run about $3). The good news is this activity works well with groups of 3 - 4 students, so you don't need a lot of these.

Materials:

• Play-Doh 
• LED lights
• Battery Holder (I use rechargable AA batteries)

I personally do not use the insulating play-doh. I am sure it would be helpful, but I barely have time to cook dinner for my own kids this week, much less make craft supplies.

I left the instructions very open ended. Each group got two battery packs, an LED and some play-doh. The instructions were to make an OR and an AND gate, and take a picture of each.

Post on PlayDoh circuit Ted Talk

Printing - in 3D

Our new 3-D Printer:

Bits and Pieces

The computer club kids have been working all year to raise the money for our new 3-D Printer. They bought it from Printrbot. They offer a $150 teacher discount, which helps.

Hopefully it starts looking like this by Friday:

I have been working over the past year to build the lab into a hacker space. We have programmable sewing machines, screen printer, button maker and now the printer. It has created a lot of excitement around the computer science program here and brings a lot of kids into the lab.

Is this computer science? Maybe. Computer Science folks never question having robots in the lab, and frankly the amount of "coding" that goes into the embroidery sewing machine or the other stuff is about the same as many simple robots like the Finch (with Snap).

For me it builds a culture of creating and crafting, with coding at the core, and that is enough.