think it. dream it. design it.: May 10

Choose your own adventure
and LEGO building at Northside

Tuesday
Today I brought out a big tub of Legos to add a new element to the mix. My plan turned out to be too ambitous -- I wanted us to build a couple of the LEGO motion modules off of the PIE ideas webpage so we could use them next week when we started working on an animated park (also from PIE ideas). It turns out that these modules are difficult to build even if you have a model and all of the parts laid out in front of you. Forget about trying to construct them in the hustle and bustle of the teen room with a printout of the plan and a giant box of unsorted LEGOS. Five of the teen boys were game, and we struggled through a few half-built modules. One of them made a giant extendable arm element from the "Reacher" plan, then used it to hit people. Darin ended up with a welt across his back that he proudly showed off.

Jesse and Ant continue to mess around with their skateboarding movie. Jesse is doing some nice artwork on paper that he wants to include in the movie and we talked about firing up the Best Buy scanner that is collecting dust in the corner. Anthony is using some of the footage to make a commercial for a school assignment. These guys are remarkable. They have a bright-eyed plan to move to California and skate their way through college. If will be fun to help them do it.

Wednesday
I noticed on Tuesday that a) the boys like making cars and, b) the girls weren't interested in anything LEGO. I know how much we hated cars last year, but Myles and Gabe have come up with an interesting approach. They use cars as a doorway to programming skills, especially for teaching how to program infrared communication.

I made it to the club later than I had planned and Santiago had already setup the cameras and laptops. I encouraged the boys to continue building cars from LEGO and cardboard. Jaun and Javier started building a low-rider and this started a ripple of excitement about car building.

Meanwhile, I tried to create a setup that would appeal to the girls as much as the guys. I hunted down a pile of stuffed animals, Beanie Babies, and action figures that the club seems to have hundreds of and I borrowed some wire hangers from Mrs. Lupe to use as supports for posing the dolls. Then I invited some of the girls to help me animate them with the Intel Play cameras and a few were interested. I couldn't build on their interest much though because I was helping with the car project, with Ant and Jesse's video stuff, and I had to bounce back to the Museum to talk about the DesignIT commercial.

Thursday

Javier wants to make a fighting game in Microworlds. I showed him the basics and he is picking it up okay, but I really need to spend a few afternoons and take a group of them through a Microworlds class.

We started building cars in earnest today and finished several. I found myself explaining gear ratios and Cricket programming to attentive teenage boys -- they wanted to make their cars GO and I knew some stuff that could help them. Their focus was sharp -- make a car that will beat my friends car, and they used whatever tools were comfortable. The cars were all simple and some of Some of them opted to use a 9V battery connected directly to the motor to make their cars go. I plan to show them why Crickets are a better a solution to running a car.

I got verbal okays for the field trip on Friday.

Friday
I followed Myles' lead with my Friday field trip by limiting the visit to only boys. This wans't terribly difficult becuase the teen who were interested in building the IR cars were mostly guys anyway. I thought I could buy some focus by working with the guys this week and the girls next week on IR related projects...Our goalwas to finish the cars that some of the boys had started working on so they all operated with crickets and would hold together long enough so that I could introduce IR control. I was tired since it had been a tough week and it slowed me down some. I didn't prepare as much as I wanted to and I was put even further behind when I had to go pick the group up myself because of staff problems at the club. It was a decent night.