Blue Dot Intro to I.R.

Hey gang. With all this blogging about Panther, its hard to believe I've been having a blast with Jonathon, Sammie, and Crystal at the museum with the ALA crew every Wednesday as well. With the success I had over at Panther last school year with I.R. activities, we thought it was about time to introduce I.R. to ALA. So I reviewed my blog entry from Friday, June 3rd 2005 about the intro class, and planned out a lesson plan based on that. This was the first time I used our blog as reference and my did it pay off! In fact I virtually followed the same plan, so reference both this and the other if you like. Here's how it went...

First we handed out a quick questionaire asking thier knowledge on the concepts of waves. It had many of the same questions as last year, and a few new ones. Here's some examples of the Q and A...

Q: How do you think crickets, the insects, talk to one another?
A: Using chirps in sound waves
A: They rub their legs together
A: Through I.R.

Q: How do you think our crickets, the machines, talk to one another?
A: Through I.R.
A: With the lights
A: Through computer technology

Q: What is a wave?
A: Something that comes into the beach
A.The motion of the communication
A. A sound traveling in a curvey way
A: (drawing of a squiggly line)

Q: Name 5 differant kinds of waves...
A: Sound
A: Heat
A: Microwave
A: Water
A: Radioactive

Q. Name 3 ways you used waves this morning?
A. Talking, shower, breakfast
A. I waved bye to my Mom
A. I heard stuff, there were waves in my sink, and I listened to the radio

Q. What causes these different waves?
A. Sound
A. Vibrations
A. Radio activityActivity
A. The moon's gravity

After discussing our answers with the group, we then paired off and had each pair go to a computer that had 3 crickets and a transfer ckicket. The lesson plan was very similar to June 3rds entry, with the exception of a new way to challenge them in the activity, which I believe was a huge improvement. Here's how it went...

"Intro to I.R."

Big Idea: Educating kids on how to program I.R. programs.

Dates: Wednesday, November 9th

Groups Participating: ALA blue dot crew

Attendance: about 15 kids and Crystal, Sammie and I

Materials:
Software: laptops, transfer cables, transfer crickets, 3 crickets at each laptop

Directions: Two activities. Both programs for these activities should be saved in most of the laptops, in the logoblocks files entitled "1st I.R. activity" and "2nd I.R .activity". The first activity lasted the longest and definately taught the kids the most...

Activity one: Through basic I.R. program displayed by the digital projector, have the kids program one of thier crickets to be "remote" and program the other cricket to be "reciever". The program for the remote cricket should read, "Loop, send I.R. every 1 second (10)". The reciever cricket's program should read, "Loop, if new I.R., note 56". It's best that everyone's note that they program should be a different number so thier note can be distinguished from the other crickets. After everyone's 2 crickets were programmed, I handed out a worksheet with 7 different questions about various activities to try with these newly programmed I.R. crickets. After completing the activities, they wrote down thier observations. Here are the following questions and answers. Free free to cut and paste the questions to use as an intro activity again...

1) Q. AT WHAT DISTANCE IN FEET DO YOUR CRICKETS STOP COMMUNICATING?
A.9 feet
A. Around 8 feet long

2) Q. CAN YOUR CRICKETS SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER BY REFLECTING IN A MIRROR?
A. yes

3) Q. CAN YOU FIND OTHER OBJECTS THEY CAN SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER THROUGH REFLECTION?
A. computer screen
A. silver bowl
A. coffee maker
A. yes

4) Q. HOW MANY SHEETS OF PAPER CAN YOUR CRICKETS SPEAK THROUGH?
A. 12 sheets
A. 13 sheets
A. 15 sheets

5) Q. WHAT OTHER SORT OF MATERIALS CAN YOUR CRICKETS SPEAK THROUGH? WHAT OBJECTS PREVENT IT? (Water? Glass? Soda? Plastic?)
A.plastic bags
A. window
A. chips
A. plastic bins

6) Q. TRY CROSSING PATHS WITH ANOTHER GROUP’S CRICKETS WHILE THEY TRY TO COMMUNICATE. DO THEY INTERFERE WITH ONE ANOTHER? IF SO, AT WHAT DISTANCE DO THEY STOP INTERFERING?
A. no

7) Q. USING THE TELEVISION REMOTE CONTROL POINTED TOWARD YOUR RECEIVING CRICKET, AT WHAT DISTANCE IN FEET DO THEY STOP COMMUNICATING?
A. 9 feet
A. 15 feet
A. The whole room long!


Activity two: Have the kids reprogram "remote" cricket to send a random value between 1 and 100 every second. Next program one "reciever" cricket to only beep when the sent values of 1 to 50 are sent, and a second reciever cricket to only beep the sent values of 51 and 100 are sent. Have the kids notice they never beep at the same time.

Skills: I.R. programming, understanding how I.R. waves are sent and work, understanding of how the crickets communicate

Associated Concepts: confidence in programming, working in pairs premotes cooperation

Best Part: The choas of the kids discovering. Lots of "Oh, cool!"'s.

Worst Part: None

Culminating Event: Nasc-I.R. races and ang I.R. chain reaction the lenth of the room with limited materials.

I was thrilled at the involvement and excitement, and how the lesson went overall. This is the first in a two part lesson for the intro to I.R. class, which I'll blog about next time, where we involved I.R. in the two challenges listed above under culminating events, which went awesome. Lookin forward to tellin you about it and posted some photos.

myles