CLICK ON ANY IMAGE OF FLOWERS AND VASE TO WATCH VIDEO

For the tribute circuit card assignment, I had many different ideas. During our classes when we were learning how to create circuits with paper engineering, I experimented with making a boat the lights up and moves as well as a little puppy face that had its nose light up. It was really fun being able to make something move on its own. I realized that the boat wouldn’t stay up on its own so I then create a base that included a little pocket for the battery. The next class I created a snake that had eyes light up as well as a tail that rattles. With each project, I had to keep iterating because especially when I didn’t solder parts of the wire, it was then hard to tell why the circuit wasn’t working. I also tried to create pull tab with one of my pieces which worked pretty well but I decided I prefer push tabs better. By playing with all of these different types of circuits and materials, it allowed me to be prepared to create something more permanent and meaningful.

When thinking about things to create, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to create a tribute card for my mom who passed away from breast cancer. I then realized that my grandma’s 85th birthday is coming up next week. I decided to make her a bouquet of flowers, because she loves to garden and would always make me join her when I was younger. Whenever I was sick or to celebrate an accomplishment she would make me little bouquets of flowers to make me smile. This time I wanted to do the same for her. I first started by practicing to make sure that all of my lights were working. It is important to check and see if the lights you chose work with one another and don’t cancel each other out. I did this by testing them all on the same battery. Next, I started to form the vase where I created a little pocket for the battery on the inside. This battery is then removable by just lifting up the back of the base for the future. I wired the copper wire to the outside of the vase to then create a push button to turn it on and off. My idea was to have the lights shine through the flowers, so then once I got the push switch working properly I wired the copper back up the vase and then cut out a holes in a piece of cardboard where the lights would then shine through.  As I kept going I continued to solder all of the copper pieces together as well as the lights, so that there is a stronger connection. About 3/4ths of the way through the project it suddenly stoped working. I had to take apart the entire piece to figure out where the circuit when wrong. After taking half an hour I finally realized that a wire had broken off. Then when testing it, it still wasn’t working. So then I realized another connection ripped and I had to re solder it. One that was taken care of I pieced it all together and then got into the decorating and artistic process. I created a cover for the vase that was water colored with vines and flowers. I had always painted with my grandma so this was a great way to relate that part of the project to her. Then I covered the base in pink tissue paper to correspond to the pink flowers at the top. I made a little not and cut out a leaf that would be the push button cover. I had a lot of fun arranging the flowers at the top and creating them out of the tissue paper. The lights showed through just enough to add a glowing effect.

I had never created a simple circuit prior to this class so this was all a new learning experience. I am not normally a fan of engineering like projects, but I had a lot of fun with this and I know students will too.  The tribute cards relate really well to the STEAM projects because they involve thinking that relates to both. At times my brain hurt so bad, but I knew that I was learning from it and it ended up being super successful and fun!

In my future classroom I want to do this because it really gets students thinking about how to make art projects that are functional with science and engineering. I would have them come up with ideas of projects they could make for a friend or a relative that would mean something to the recipient. I would also try to encourage students to have the projects move or even create little origami animals that move. They could then create a scene with them all, for example, a jungle. This way they get to work together and separately, but in a way where they get to share ideas and what they created in a fun way.

CLICK ON SNAKE TO WATCH VIDEO OF RATTLE

CLICK BOAT IMAGE TO SEE IT MOVE