MakerSpace Christmas Challenge

For the last few weeks the Biggies have been spending their time in the MakerSpace tackling a Christmas Challenge.

  • Design & construct a Christmas Model 🌶
  • Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part 🌶 🌶
  • Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part & a simple electrical circuit. 🌶 🌶 🌶
  • Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part, a simple electrical circuit, & a programmable element. 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶

We started off by making plans:

We talked a bit about the skills needed for carrying out or plans and the design cycle.

He results show not only our pupils imagination but a range of skills.


For the last few weeks we made some Christmas models in the Makerspace. We could make anything we wanted, as long as it is Christmas themed. I decided to make a Christmas tree! I was the only one who made a Christmas tree.

There was a lot of problems we had. Here are some of the problems I had:

  • The motor didn’t work
  • The tree was moving when the motor was on
  • The motor was falling of a bit

Here are the solutions I had for the problems

  • Check and re-wire the electronics
  • Add some weights to the tree
  • Tape it on a bit
Robert

I made a train with a carriage carrying presents. I thinked about connecting both the locomotive and the carriage together. So I used pipe cleaners to hook them together. The final product was a success. I liked how I added presents to the carriage.

Problems & Solutions

I used wood to make the presents but they were too tiny so I used Lego to make the presents. I wrapped some wooden circles in tin foil to make some presents.

Xander

I used lots of my skills but I used five main skills. 1. I used planning and organising because I had a plan on what to do. 2. I used ICT for my micro:bit. 3. Numeracy for measuring things. 4. Problem solving for my short and tall stuff. 5. Creative thinking to add details.

Tony

For the maker space Christmas challenge I made a sleigh pulled by a rain deer. It had a light collar and a micro bit in the sleigh. It also moved. We had to make it max 30cm wide, long and tall.

A few problems I had were I didn’t have enough space to make two reindeer like on my plan so I had to move the micro bit to my sleigh. Another problem I had was that my reindeer was to heavy causing my sleigh to tip forwards so I had to pup my rubber in the back until I got the wires and batteries in which held it down.

Some skills I used were planning and organising, ICT, creative thinking and practical skills.

Juliet

First I made a net. Then I hot glued the net together to make a square then I made a roll for the front. Then I added 2 light bulbs and with then I wrote Santas express on it. Lastly I added an spoiler and an antenna and that was me finished

I used my practical skills and my ICT. My problem was the clips would not connect to the light bulb. My idea totally changed at one point because my original plan was a slay that you pull Back against an elastic band.

Noah

Makecode and Makedo Christmas

The tree has maths baubles, made with our maths skills of measuring of length & angles. And micro:bit ones too. To make the micro:bit ones we need to make 2 animations called from functions. This is the first time we have incorporated functions in our micro:bit code. The microbits are controlled via another micro:bit and the radio feature. There are loops and comparisons involved too.

If you press the play button above you will be able to see the different animation by pressing button A or B. Pressing both together should stop the animation.

The tree itself is made with cardboard & makedo.

We had quite a relaxing day today after our Christmas show yesterday afternoon & evening. We did some maths work looking at tessellation and transformation of shapes, first on paper then in Keynote. We used the idea of Stained Glass windows for the keynote1 and practised our skills in grouping and transforming shapes. We also use images that we are allowed to use legally. We didn’t just grab them from google.

Most of the images have attribution on the image, the other ones used these photos:
Flickr Photo: Aurora by QIAOS license:Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Flickr Photo: Northern Lights In Tromso by B Lucava license:Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

  1. The idea borrowed from Winter Wonderland 2024 – Renfrewshire Apple Regional Training Centre ↩︎

Christmas Challenge

Primary 5-06-7 had a STEM challenge yesterday. The children had to create a sledge to carry a small assortment of sweets down a ramp. We were looking for the one that could go furthest without losing its cargo and the best looking on.

The Biggies are getting really good with their practical skills in the makerspace. The manages the whole thing In a couple of hours. Some beautiful solutions. Lots of problem solving, creativity and communication on display.

Montagesof 4 photos of pupils working on makerspace task

Christmas Engineering Challenge

The Children rose to the NLC Learning Hub  Christmas Engineering Challenge.
Christmas Engineering Challenge Can you design and build a Christmas themed structure with a moving part, an electronic component and an element of coding?

We posted an in progress report Christmas Engineering Challenge Part 1 last week.

We lost some time on Friday as no children were in school due to snow.

This week we finished off and have started to make movies of our reindeer. All of the groups managed all of the chilli challenges! Watch the movies to see how. (A couple more currently in production)

Children & Cardboard Reindeer

Christmas Engineering Challenge Part 1

The NLC Learning Hub has issued a Christmas Engineering Challenge:
Christmas Engineering Challenge Can you design and build a Christmas themed structure with a moving part, an electronic component and an element of coding?

The biggies started work this morning. We are making Reindeer from Cardboard and hope to include movement, electrics & coding. It might take a while…

Most of the groups got a lot of their model finished this morning. We used our teamwork, creativity & problem solving skills. On group got on to the moving part:

cardboard reindeer with moving antlers

By lunchtime we had made a lot of progress:
Cardboard reindeer in progress

More to do…

Highlights of the Week 2 December

We have had a busy week in the Biggies. The school show practise is well underway and the class are making great progress with expression and clarity.

Football Festival

On Monday half the class went off to the local Football Festival, the remaining children worked on construction of a Christmas tree. We will be decorating it and using some more makedo screws for cardboard construction.

On Wednesday we had a visit from Ms Cooper to help us with scientific enquiry. The class learned about using variables in experiments and mixed some alkali with acid to produce foam.

Montage of children working on enquiry.

We have been starting to work on a new podcast for BBPOD. Today the class worked on their scripts. The atmosphere in the class was great. Everyone was really engaged with working with their partners, writing, editing and trying out the word. I am really looking forward to listing to this one.

montage of photos of children working together on iPads. Set of skills 'badges' along the bottom: Problem Solving, ICT, planning & organising, literacy, working together & communication. Title Podcast Scripting

 

Christmas Challenge 1 – Minetest

The Biggies have some Christmas Challenges today:

  1. Minetest, build a snow house, igloo, Christmas tree, bonus points for Christmas jumper
  2. Newspaper Christmas table, to hold 5 book, max height 20cm
  3. Santa Sleigh to hold choc Santa & pudding
  4. Micro:bit Christmas decoration

Here are some early minetest results, not sure if we will get to the other challenges…

Continue reading “Christmas Challenge 1 – Minetest”

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