Stage 2 Gifted and Talented Excursion to Mac ICT C.R.E.A.T.E Maker Day

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

Last Week 24 gifted and talented students from GEPS attended a Maker C.R.E.A.T.E Bootcamp at Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre. We all had a wonderful day and learnt and experienced so much.

In the morning the children worked in pairs and used recycled materials and Little Bits electronics parts to make an automatic bin lid opener.

Here is a video of three devices in action and their proud creators.

Have a peep at the photos of the children in action…look at the high level of engagement and team work!!

In the afternoon the students worked individually to design and make their own electronic device using recycled materials, battery and a buzzer or a light. Here are some of the wonderful creations.

A dog with a light up nose.

Money boxes with paper clips on the inside that light up when a coin completes the circuit.

Fire engines with flashing lights

and many more creations

It was a fabulous…thanks John Burfoot who did a tremendous job presenting and running the day and the wonderful team at Mac ICT.

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

NXT Battle Bots

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

For two lessons students in 6/5W,H and Y focused on the serious quest of determining the supreme Battle Bots. The pictures tell the tale.

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

2CT Design and Make Cars that can steer using a rotating axle.

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

As part of the ‘wheel challenge’ students had to design and make their own cars with a steering mechanism allowing the front wheels to turn. Some of the cars did not move freely and students had to troubleshoot and work out solutions.

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

3/2S Design, Make and Program a new player on the Soccer Field

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

3/2S have just finished a unit of work in WEDO entitled ‘Playing Soccer’. Here they built, programmed, analysed, modified and measured a: pair of kicking legs, a goal keeper and cheering fans. The students’ challenge was now to design and build their own person on the soccer field. The person must move and use one of the mechanisms from the above models. Advanced students were encouraged to incorporate multiple mechanisms and/or modify the functional parts.

Some of the kicking legs gained bodies.

These referees rotated on a spinning axle and had motion sensors to trigger sounds or change in direction of motion.

The children enjoyed making their names come up on game display.

Other students had explosions on their soccer fields.

The team work was excellent

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

2RF Designed and Made Cranes with a locking mechanism

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

As part of the open ended challenge activity on pulleys and belts, students in 2RF were asked to design and make their own crane using pulleys. The extension was to create a locking mechanism and explain why this was an important safety feature. No building instructions were supplied but students had a diagram of a crane to help in their design process.

Here are some of the cranes:

Here are some of the locking mechanisms created by the children…..very good for Year 2!!

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

An Elevator for the Building Site

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

This term in Lego Robotics 4l and 4/3A have been working on an open ended problem solving activity to design , make and program an elevator that successfully moves Max and Mia between levels in a building on the Construction Site.

Here is what students were asked to do:

Study the mechanisms in the cranes and/or forklifts they built in previous terms and use one, both or a modification of these to design and build a functioning elevator. The forklift had smooth tiles to reduce friction, the crane used a counterbalance and both had tilt sensor controls. Students were encouraged to incorporate these features into their models where appropriate.
Create a report using one of the forms below:

two minute video
poster with photos and/or drawings
written report with photos and/or drawings
two minute speech to the class including photos and demonstration of your elevator
power point presentation
any other ideas welcome…but you must get permission from your teacher first.

Material to be covered in the report

Clearly explain how your elevator works using technical language. Where possible demonstrate your working elevator.
Show and explain the programs you used. (Screen shots can be good for this).
Outline at least one problem you had whilst designing, building and programming your elevator. Explain how you overcame this problem.
What are three things you like about your elevator?
How could you make your elevator even better? Why would this be good?

Here are some of the models.

These elevators used friction reducing tiles to create an elevator shaft. As a result the elevators ran up and down very smoothly and stayed on track at all times.

This model had a rectangular prism shaped lift shaft which was made strong with good use of triangles for bracing. Some students created tilt sensor controllers and the programming for these is shown below.

Some of the elevators had a more crane-like mechanism and used counterweights.

Other examples of programming included use of keyboard commands to control the direction of the movement of the motors, addition of sounds and displays and creating of messages on the displays.

This program counted down before the lift started.

Other students incorporated sensors into their programs.

Here are some videos of our children in action.

Here is some of the written work from the students’ reports.

Our Elevator by Lucy and Tilly

This is our elevator. The mechanism is similar to the crane’s mechanism it doesn’t build up much momentum so it stops very fast. When we press ‘t’ on the keyboard, the lift manoeuvres upwards because the power from the computer travels through the hub into the motor where it is used to spin around a small axle. Attached to the axle is a yellow bushing which connects to a belt-driven pulley. The belt-driven pulley is connected to an axle which also has a cotton reel on it. Tied to the cotton reel is some thread on the end of which is the lift. When everything begins to move the thread winds around the cotton reel and the lift ascends. Then when we press ‘l’ on the key board the opposite happens. We added some sounds and back grounds which are: a reef setting changing to a cave setting and a siren warning everybody to move out of the way because it is a building. by Lucy and Tilly

Our Elevator by Serina

Our elevator works like this:

The computer generates the power for the hub. When the hub starts, the motor can activate. The axle that is in the motor rotates. There is a pulley, with a string attached to it. When the axle rotates the pulley, the string wraps around the axle and at the same time the string with attachments begins to get shorter and the elevator carriage goes up.

We also have placed a tilt sensor on the hub. When one of us uses the tilt sensor we can control the elevator. For example, pretend I was using the tilt sensor. If I tilted it upwards the elevator would go up. Visa versa.

Oh! We have a problem the elevator the elevator isn’t stable. But we couldn’t fix it. We like how the elevator shoots upwards and it’s funny when it does a little flip and goes over to the other side.

We liked how there were little problems and we overcame them. We also liked designing our model and how the actual model changed a lot from the plan.

I think we could make our elevator better by making it more stable and more technical. I think this would be good because then we’d have an elevator that doesn’t fall over and collapse.

We worked together to build the model, work out the problems and write the program. Other than the model falling down at times, I think we did really well.

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

3C program Cheering Fans with WeDo and Scratch 1.4 software

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

The students in 3C made cheering fans and programmed them using WeDo and Scratch 1.4.

The children were able to identify the similarities and the differences between the programs and work out the best way to program their desired outcomes.

Programs in Scratch

Program in WeDo

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

4L on the Construction Site

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

4L busily built and programmed forklifts to work on the construction site.

Thanks for calling by

Mrs Garlick

Years 5 and 6 Alien Attack on NXTopia

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Jennifer Garlick

Dear Bloggers,

Years 5 and 6 have been busy on the distant planet NXTopia. They discovered life and programmed their Bots to move in a figure of 8 around the Aliens to see whether they were friend or foe. Alas the Aliens were not friendly so the students were briefed to design and build a robot with an attacking arm and defensive feature such as a shield. Students programmed their robots to move 1metre up to the alien, attack it and then hastily retreat. PLease see the photos and videos below.