Video Link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/205597203/#player

For this project I experimented with the Scratch program to make a simple animation of two dancing dinosaurs. I had a lot of difficulty with this program at first and didnt get anything to work when I first tried it in class. After going home and trying it again I followed the steps for the beginners tutorial on how to make something dance and then added my own twist to it. In this animation I have two dino’s that talk, dance, change costumes, have music, and an intractable color changing button. I really enjoyed this once I was able to get it to work. I think this program has awesome capabilities for doing some really interesting stuff once you get to know it. I’m exciting about trying to make an intractable game next!

For this project I had to come up with a clever design to add animation to a circuit with led lights. I chose to make a cute Valentine’s Day inspired card with lightening bugs as the led lights. I thought this was super fun and easy to do after previously learning how to make a simple circuit the day before to light up one led. This one was a little different because the led needed to be connected carefully to both legs on the same strip of negative and positive as seen in the picture. I made a switch that also gave the effect when you rubbed it over both light breaks, it would cause a flickering effect like fireflies. I really loved this project and this it is one of my favorites so for to include in a art class.

For this project we made a simple circuit that turned on a led light with a battery pack and switch. We started by making the simple version with  a clip to make sure it worked. We did this by making two L shaped perimeters of copper tape, one for the negative and one for the positive leg of the led to be soldering to . Once that was in place the battery was held in place by folding the positive flap on top and securing it with a clip. After that worked well we cut out a battery back design and folded it with copper tape ‘legs’ that touched and neatly held the battery. Next, was making a switch to turn the light on and off. This was done by making a cut on one of the tape L’s and putting copper tape on a flap of paper that would connect when touched together turning the light on. I really enjoyed doing this project and think it would be a really fun and an easy introduction for teaching kids about simple led circuits that they could easily include in whatever they wanted in their art. I really enjoyed making this and was really excited seeing it work.

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For this project, our group had to design something with images that were animated with movement or technology in some way by using a simple motor and batteries. My group began to immediately start building off our first idea, a baby mobile. Once we quickly got the motor set up and working on a stable base we started to design a very simple mobil with hanging images that would spin when turned on using the switch we made. The idea worked overall but did spin a little faster then we desired. Our second project, since time allowed us to try another, ended up as a helicopter. We started to first make a ferris wheel out of the popsicle stick but it soon ended up resembling a helicopter in both noise and motion. This time we tried hiding the motor and batteries better and made a more simple switch that worked by just pressing on the one battery side. This one was my favorite of the two as it was more animated and fun to interact with.

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The drawing machines project was a ton of fun! My partner and I got our first drawing bot working very fast and had a lot of time to play around with attaching different tools like watercolor/acrylic brushes and experimenting with mediums like marker, watercolor, pencils, and acrylic paint.

When we began making our first bot we just were trying to be as simple as possible so we could concentrate on making sure the battery and motor would run when it was all attached so we wouldn’t have to keep fixing it. Once that  was set we just started exploring with what worked or what may give us cool results other then the markers used in the demo. We thought paint would be really fun to try and could be fun for introducing color mixing into a project. While the bot didn’t move as smoothly with the paints it was still a lot of fun and made really pretty marks on the paper. Overall we really were focused on seeing what else could be done with this project to make it more interesting and to build on for future lessons even. I think this would be a really fun and easily expandable project to do with my own students one day.

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We began by constructing tracks out of cardboard folded in half to make a v shape.  After seeing how difficult it was to make a corner turn we had the idea of making rolled paper pipes to let the marble roll through. Then we started thinking about height and began putting our pieces together using a chair as our base to gain height and also have a stable base to build on. We used the same paper piping as supports as well to hold up the ones the marble was going through. We also utilized the round cup form of the egg cartons to make corners and other interesting transitional pieces. Overall we had a really great time seeing what worked and what didn’t and coming up with different ideas. I think this was a great group project and we had an awesome time doing it and making our own marble run. I would love to try this out in my own classroom one day especially with high school students as I feel it could get really creative.