ALA DAY, Thursday October 14

Today's objectives were as follows - We wanted to introduce the students to the melon harp idea (from Ice THeramin) as well as refresh their memory on circuit bending. Karie came with me to ALA, and i had given her a crash course in both before we went there. I asked her to supervise and help the circuit bending group while i woked with the melon harp group. I gave the students the choice of what they wanted to experiment with, and more of the students chose circuit bending than did the melon harp. Joey and David were not given the choice, they had to circuit bend to get ready for the playshop that they signed up for. Those two will be helping me facilitate the circuit bending playshop on Thursday of next week. They experimented with some of the toys we got, and i realized that a few of the ones we acquired are not going to work so well. That can be fixed. THe group doing the melon harp were to program the crickets themselves, from a template we set up on the projector. The sensors were then jabbed into and raked over the fruits to create some amazing sounds. The melon harp group were then instructed to hack the program, trying new things to make new sounds. Some worked rather well, and some did not. THe circuit bending students were challenged to incorporate light sensors into their bent toys, as well as trying to find a way to link a few of the toys together. THe students seemed well engaged with all of these activities for about an hour or so. I was surprised that they worked so well so fast! I was expecting the activities to take longer thatn they did. I'll have to plan a few more activities for next time - which is funny because next week is MINDFEST!!
Jonathon