Intro to MIDI

Intro to MIDI by sharing discoveries

Big Idea: Due to our inability to get going on sound sculptures until Wednesday when they would get to the museum, I went a bit out of order of the scheduale and introduced the Miti-boards. I thought we had spent quite a bit of time away from programing, so this was a fun way to get them back on the laptops and comfortable navigating logo-blocks again. Plus I came up with a fun activity to introduce it in an organized and fun "share out" fashion, instead of simply letting them go.

Dates: Monday, February 20th

Groups Participating: Panther Teens

Attendance: Only three, but they got into it bigtime...Lahmia, Joshua and Braela

Software: Logoblocks

Hardware: One laptop per student and one midi-board set up per student which includes a transfer cable, a transfer cricket, a cricket, a bus cable, a midi-board, a speaker cable and a speaker, and extra midi-baord and crickets

Materials: extra AA, AAA, and 9V batteries, the "MIDI Quick Start" worksheet, and the "Exploring MIDI instrument sound guide" packet

Directions: Starting them with a blank logoblocks page on each computer, I had them first "test beep" thier cricket (something they should know always to start with). Then I handed out the "MIDI Quickstart" worksheet (I had not yet handed out the "instrument guides") and had them create the exact same program on it. Then I had them program thier cricket, and, one at a time, each play thier cricket and MIDI for the group. If thier MIDI sounded different from another's, that's how we knew something needed to be fixed, and they had to work together to find out what it was. After they finally all sounded the same, we explored together by changing one catagory's number, one at a time, to whatever number they wanted (within the capability of the program), and not playing thier results until everyone was ready. For example, I had them change the "set instrument" block to any number between 1 and 128, and then we individually played each person's results for the group. Then I had them change the number next to the note graphic on thier "mnote" block to any number between 15 and 120 (anything lower or higher is usually inaudible), then played that for the group. Then finally, we changed the numbers next to the clock graphic on the "mnote" block and the number on the "wait" block to explore how it changed time, and played those results individually for the group. This activity shows how the program works while keeping the group together and focused and having fun by hearing unexpected and variedresults.
After that, I asked them what thier favorite instument was. After they all answered in front of the group (a mini icebreaker), I handed out the "instument guides" and told them to find their favorite instrument and program it on their cricket. I next challenged them to change the note values and write a song with thier favorite instument, or they could just explore. By the end they were all in thier own worlds in MIDI until time was up.

Associated Concepts: Programing, sharing out with a group, listening

Best Part: Hearing how different the results were when changing the same values, and when they found the sound effects section of the instrument guide.

Worst Part: The standard "no cricket in sight" fumbles, but we fixed 'em before anyone lost interest.

Improvements: Make sure to test all the MIDI set-ups before you leave for the club, and bring extra in case they backfire. More attendees would have been nice too.

Overall, a successful intro, and I recommend this activity to anyone starting up MIDI exploration with a middle-sized group.
Next time I blog, I'll fill you in on our successes during construction of sound structures with a few Panther teens, both at the museum and at the club, and we'll let you know how it went with ALA's day with Justin Pate. Until then, I wish you the best.

Myles

A Week Of Soldering

So, we had trouble getting vans organized. So instead of hauling half the supplies they needed to the club to begin building sound sculptures, I decided why not teach them a skill none had tried yet, and get some sensors and motor cables fixed and built, which we needed desperately. Plus, I still have and they will use the very same sensors they built, so soldering the sensors is part of the cycle as much as anything else.

Big Idea: teach them the useful skill of soldering

Dates: Wednesday, February 8th to Wednesday February 15th

Groups Participating: Panther teens

Attendance: Eddie, Michael, Braela, Thomas, Joshua, Lahmia, Gabe and myself for one of the three days (thanks Gabe!)

Software: None

Hardware: None

Materials: soldering stands, soldering irons, sponges, soldering wire, pegboard to work on, wire cutters / strippers, shrink wrap, wire, sensors, motor connectors

Directions: Like drilling, I made sure to show how to solder and express any safety issues first, soI had them group up around the table and had them watch me solder first as I explained.

Associated Concepts: Learn a valuable skill, trust them with a potentially dangerous activity

Best Part: I'd say the fact that they loved this activity and asked to do it more. That and no burns.

Worst Part: Learning patience in holding the wire steady over the wires. Took a couple groans of frustration here and there, but they got used to it.

Improvements: Make sure to have enough materials to go for a while. The first day, the teens ot so into it and worked so fast, we ran out of things to fix within an hour.

"Drill-Off" / 2006 2nd Annual Panther Film Festival

"Drill-Off"

Big Idea: I knew we had an audience coming in at 6:15pm for the presentation of our 2nd Annual Panther Film Festival, but from 4:30pm until then, I wanted to get the teens familar with one of the several tools they would be utilizing in the next few weeks. So I came up with a safe but fun, timed competition called a "Drill-Off".

Dates: Monday, February 6th

Groups Participating: Panther Boys and Girls Club Teens

Attendance: Seven teens including Jasmine, Eddie, Michael, Andrea, Thomas, and Joshua.

Software: None

Hardware: None

Materials: 3 drills, lots o' scraps o' wood, various sized wood screws, vices and vice grips, and safety googles.

Directions: First, I grouped all the teens around our work table. I then had them watch me use the drills properly using safety googles and vices. Then I had each of them drill in one screw in front of me to make sure they could do it correctly. After that, I split the teens into groups of two. Then I gave each team a drill and screws. I then told them they have 1 hour to build a wooden stand that is at least 4 iches off the ground that will support my wieght, and we will test the stands in front of our film festival audince as a preview to the movies. When it came around to testing the stands, I made sure to announce the team members and have them stand-up for the big moment.

Associated Concepts: Teamwork with a team-mate, tool competency, design and engineering.

Best Part: The drum roll before each test, and the fact that they all past the tests.

Worst Part: None, it went over perfectly.

Improvements: A camera! always have a camera!

2006 2nd Annual Panther Film Festival

After the "drill-off" presentation, it was time for the public premier of "A Glimps At Our Life At Our Club", a film created by the Panther teens of DesignIT. I sincerly hope this tradition of our annual film festival continues for years to come. Like last year, we created tickets to get in which they handed out to the kids, we had snacks for all those who attended, had theater-like seating (not stadium, but pretty good) and like any other premier, we introduced the makers of the film. Something differant from last year was, before we showed the new film, we played last year's film, "Leaders Of Love". This film, by the way, won the Boys and Girl's Club regional film competition. The kid's got a kick out of this part because of the fact they got to see how different everyone was from a year ago. Alot of laughter and alot of fun.

Northside Weekly Plan

The Students
7th through 11th grade kids at the Northside Boys & Girls Club.

Learning Objectives
Get a group of teenagers who have only passing familiarity with Crickets to become engaged in programming with Logoblocks. I want them to understand the basics of how Crickets operate and be able to set-up a lap-top with a transfer Cricket, a Cricket, a motor, and a sensor plugged into the proper ports. They should be able to turn the Cricket on and off and create a simple program that includes an "IF-Then" block, a math operator, and a "Loop" block. The goal is to get them familiar enough so they can make independent progress on building thier musical projects. My other objective this week is to get the teens accustomed to regular activity in the new DesignIT Studio at Northside.

Saturday
12:00pm – 4:00pm Make sure the internet works at Northside. Give the teens the schedule for the week. Gather and organize materials for the entire week. Take whatever we can spare to the club and go shopping for the rest.

Monday
Saafir and Rockey are at school Get Santiago to set up the laptops? Set some programming and internet challenges for the teens. Get eight of the teens to clean the front half of the room. Five wireless internet adaptors. Five serial-USB adaptors. Ten laptops.

Tuesday
2:30pm – 630pm Arrive at the club at 3:15 and set-up laptop/Cricket/alligator clip/motor sensor setups. Bring notebooks for a journaling exercise. Bring fruit and a nice snack (microwaved popcorn?). Setup a projector and do a Cricket tutorial. Five wireless internet adaptors.Five serial-USB adaptors. Ten laptops.Fifteen Cricket set-ups with extra batteries.Microwave popcorn and microwaveTen journals with pencils and markers

Wednesday
4:00pm - 6:00pm Have Santiago setup the laptops and have Cricket sets available for checkout.

Thursday
3:00pm - 7:00pm The teens will come to the Museum from the site. As soon as they get here we'll do some fun get-to-know-you games. ???Then we'll do a tour of some of the cool areas of the Museum??? We'll then spend an hour exploring mechanical contraptions (that will happen to be run by Crickets) The students will get to try their hand at programming the contraptions to run with Logoblocks programs. A writing exercise will close out the evening. (Rockey -- please help me refine this)
Five wireless internet adaptors.Five serial-USB adaptors. Ten laptops.Fifteen Cricket set-ups with extra batteries.Snacks. Ten or fifteen motion modules

Friday
5:00pm - 7:00pm More open Studio time. This time we'll have the PieIDEAS web site up with some good LEGO kits and art materials to spark some exploration. We'll see how many kids just surf the net.

JUSTIN PATE LIVE!

Justin Pate Live!

Big Idea: Knowing that during the cycle we would soon be introducing midi-boards, I felt it would be important to show these teens that, after college, one can make a living doing what they love involving the exploration of sound. And so I introduced them to my friend Justin Pate. Justin is officially a professional musician. He is a keyboard player and vocalist in four different successful local bands including Confusatron, Pablo and the HempHill 7, Horses, Darth Vato, and is working on his own solo project. He is talented in many rights, but I was excited to show off his speciality, his talent in, through midi board technology, digitally looping sounds and voice.

Dates: Wednesday, Febraury 1st

Groups Participating: Panther Teens and kids

Attendance: about 35 teens and kids combined. The teens included Michael, Braela, Jonathon, Eddie, Thomas, and Joshua

Materials: Jusin's keyboard, PA, sound pedals, gadgets, one speaker, 2 microphones, plus objects to make sounds (pots n pans, shakers, spoons, tubes, ect.)

Directions: First I had everyone leave but DesignIT teens so they could have personal time with Justin to ask questions and experiment with his equipment. We had one teen at a time step up to the mic and digitally distort thier voice by someone else waving thier hand over an infa-red distance sensor, which everyone got a kick out of. Then when they were done they rotated to the sensor to disort the next person voice. After that we all picked our favorite sound we could make out of the objects I brought, then one by one we stepped up to the mic to record about 5 seconds of that sound in a rhythm. After all were recorded, Justin looped them all together to make a song. After the teens had time with Justin, we let any kids in the club to see Justin Pate Live. Because it got so crowded he had to perform 2 seperate shows. For each show, I gave him a brief intro, then he showed off the voice distorter, then we played the loop song the DesignIT teens composed, then finally he performed 2 songs involving his digital looping technology.

Associated Concepts: I really think this helped encourage the teens to understand the technology we're just messin around with now in our after-school program couldlead to an interest in a future career if passion and hard work are invested.

Best Part: Either Justin's performance of Bobby McFaren's "Don't Worry Be Happy" and seeing the kids' faces when he began looping his voice or the teens rapping with distorted voices. Beautiful DesignIT moments happened with this visit from Justin.

Worst Part: That not all DesignIT teens were ther to witness it, however we are working on it.

Side Note: The pictures above were taken by our new DesignIT photographer Michael, who has an abstract style of his own. Even if it doesn't quite capture the events of the show, he did have a blast photographing the event.

back to bloggin

Sorry gang, had a crazy couple weeks there. But I'm gonna catch up quick. I'm going to knock out a few activities to get everyone back up to speed with Panther's successes...


Wire Sculptures

Big Idea: Bummed out that none of my teens could make it to our resident artist Augie's workshop on Saturday, January 21st, I decided to keep the interest in his art alive (they had met him at the museum the previous week on Wednesday, January 18th) by creating my own wire challenge. It was the first activity we tried before going into planning our movie later that afternoon. I realize this strayed from the sound cycle a bit, but they showed so much interset in his work, I had to give them some feeling of his creative medium.

Dates: Wednesday, January 25th

Groups Participating: Panther teens

Attendance: 4 teens, including Breala, Eddie, Jonathon and Joshua

Software: none

Hardware: none

Materials: 2 staightened coat hangers per teen and 2 needle-nose pliers per teen, paper and pens

Directions: So I had the teens think of at least a dozen three dimesional objects, write them on suares of paper and put them in a box. Some of them included a flower, a car, a dog, a gun, sunglasses, achair, ect. Then we each drew an object. Using the needle-nose pliers and 2 wires, they had to form that object the best they could out of the wire coat hangers. After we finished that, we took the objects and tried to combine them into new objects. A few pics of thier sculptures are below.

Associated Concepts: Familiarizing them with Augie's medium, introducing that art can come from anything.

Best Part: Seeing the teens work together to try and creatively combine the two.

Worst Part: Trying to get them started. Wire coat hangers don't seem appealing to teens, but once the challenge was presented through drawing specific objects, they got into it.

Improvements: I really wish we could have had Auggie see all the teens somehow. Perhaps organizing a provied ride by the club on Saturdays would help workshop attendences.

Pico's First Kinetic Sculptures

Time: Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Participation: Crystal, Sammie, Myles, and Picos.

Gameplan: The Picos finished their Kinectic Sculptures for E-week and were able to bring their work onto the floor. This was their first time to build Kinectic Sculptures and presenting their work on thier own. The coaches are their to help guide them in difficult situations but the Pico will be responsible answering the guest's questions. The Picos should be very proud that their sculptures worked on the floor and impressed many of the Bluedots that were there. Big KUDOS for all the Picos that worked hard on their sculptures!!!!!!

Best Part: All the Pico teens did a great job explaining their sculpture to the guests.

Worst Part: Two members of the Pico teen sculpture did not worked on the floor and had to take their project downstairs to re-design.







Created by: AJ and Jared















Creator: Unknown












Created by: Tyler and Hannah











Created by: Madison and Tanner










Created by: Allie and Chris















Created by: Stepahnie, Jazmine, and Ashley

ALA Pre-Eweek Preparation

Big Idea: Bluedots and Picos prepare their work for E-week.

Time: Wednesday, February 15, 2006

participation: Bluedots and Picos

Gameplan: Today is the last week for the teens to finish their projects for E-week. Since the Bluedots have their own station, they worked together towards building their projects. Lauren thought of the idea to make the Spin Tables, but unfortunately she was sick and wasn't able to put the rest of the spin tables together. Fortunately, the other Bluedots pitched in to find the design and lego parts, write the program, and build the machines. After much hard work the Bluedots completed four spin tables. Now the big question for the Bluedots, will it work?!?
The Picos were also putting in major effort to get their first Kinectic Sculptures to work while displayed on the floor. This will be the first time the Pico teens will be displaying their work on their own. They will have to answer various guest questions and explained their work thoroughly. Everyone worked so hard and deserve major kudos for all their effort.





Eddie attaching the Lego motor to the spin table.












Wesley adding the finishing touches to his Solar Car.












Leland testing out the spinner for the spin table, while Matt waits patiently to add the base.








PJ and Matt testing out the spin tables.











Caroline finishing editing her movie.












Austin and Jacob finishing their program for their Kinectic Sculpture.









Jade and Daniel taping their box down to the base.










Joe and Tyler debating on the use of their materials.

Museum School Animation Workshop: Before

Big Idea
Build thaumatropes and zoetropes, then try creating simple Microworlds animation

Time
Saturday, February 11th. 10:00am - 12:00am

Groups Participating
Museum school fifth graders, and Saafir

Plan
Introduction (Fifteen minutes)
Have the students "interview" each other and report out to the group. Make sure I learn the students names before they come. Talk about animation and let them browse some historical websites
Materials: Nametags, sample animation toy, flash animation example, projector, website handouts

Thaumatropes (One hour)

• Build thaumatropes. Give the students a challenge to create a thaumatrope that they all agree looks like a good superposition (but do not use that word under any circumstances). :-) Give them three levels of challenges 1) One object on top of another, 2) An object in a scene, and 3) One object inside another
• Get them to write down their observations about their creations a) what worked well? b) what didnt' work so well? c) why do you think this works?
• Introduce the idea of persistence of vision. Use a visual aid if possible

Materials: Straws, index cards, markers, stapler, three sample Thaumatropes, string, scotch tape, pencil and lined paper, an example of persistence of vision (movies?)

Microworlds (Thirty minutes)
Introduce the software on the projector. Have the program already up and a starting page loaded. Demonstrate how to add pages. Get them to create a simple flipbook animation and share out about it.
Materials: Four laptops with Microworlds already going on them, and the program, and sample flipbook going.

Sound Cycle Continues

With a lack of vans here, and a re-tiling of the club there, through thick and thin we continued to have some great days of learnin' with the teens at Panther the last few weeks. I'll seperate this blog into two sections representing two different activities involved over the last few weeks. Here we go...

Section 1 - "Light Hunting"

Big Idea: Review with the teens the crickets and logoblocks software we'll be using to program thier sound sculptures, but make a game out of it.

Dates: Monday, January 23rd and Wednesday, January 25th

Groups Participating: Teens from Panther Boys and Grls club

Attendance: Myself, Gabe and 5 teens including Braela, Michael, Thomas, Jasmine, and Joshua

Software: Logoblocks

Hardware: laptops, crickets, transfer crickets, transfer wires, light sensors, motors, motor cables

Directions: I split the group into 3 grops of 2 and named them "team 120", "team 150" and "team 200" and wrote them on a notepad. The team names related to light specific values they were going to set on their crickets. The challenge was to program your cricket for the motor to run only when your light sensor read your team's sensor value, then find how many differant places in the club (outside the teen room) had that light reading, signified by the motor continually running.
Whoever could name the most spots in the club and could report them back to me won. I let them know that I would go with them and test thier claim occasionally, so it had to be accurate.
Just so you know, Thomas and Micheal of "team 120" won with places like, "behind the soda machine" and, my personal favorite, "inside my mouth".

Associated Concepts: Create a fun competition while learning how to program crickets.

Best Part: The race to find spots, and testing to see if they were right.

Worst Part: On Wednesday, I got everything prepared to get the teens to the museum, but there were only 3 teens at the club - not enough to make a run. So, I went out to the club and gave Eddie his T-shirt after his completion of 12 hours.

Improvements: Be sure to create a game out of it - it pumps them up.

Section 2 - Movie Making

Big Idea: We found out last minute that the club wanted DesignIT to submit another entry to the annual national short-film competition. Last year we worked on the film over a period of 2 weeks and ended up winning regionals and going onto the national rounds. This year we found out with 3 days. I give all the credit to Gabe on this one, since they did most of the shooting and editing when I couldn't be there. Overall, for the time we had, the movie "A Day Glimpse At Our Life At Our Club" was a success.

Dates: Monday, January 31st and Tuesday and Wednesday February 1st and 2nd

Groups Participating: Panther teens

Attendance: Gabe and mainly 4 teens - Braela, Micheal, Joshua and Thomas

Software: Movie Maker

Hardware: the clubs digital camera and our laptop.

Directions: On Monday I brainstormed with the group. The theme of this year's competition was "Life at the Boys and Girl's Club", so we sat down and listed all the things they like to do at the club. We then wrote them all down and decided what order they should go in. We then decided on a specific caste of actors, camera people, and directors. Overall, it worked out that everyone got to play the role in the film they wanted.

Associated Concepts: Filming, acting, directing a group, cooperation, editing, working under pressure.

Best Part: Seeing the final product and premiering it at the 2006 Second Annual Panther Film Festival (to be blogged about later).

Worst Part: Lack of time, but Gabe and the crew did a great job.

Improvements: Simply getting going earlier and tying it into a cycle plan.

I still have to blog about three fantastic events in the last few weeks, including a musician named Justin Pate visiting the club and showing what you can do with experimenting with sound and technology (got some great photos of the event taken by one of teens, Micheal, who has a very abstract style), our "Drill-Off", the Panther Film Festival, and also the ALA bluedots' public display of thier projects. Until then, u-n-i-t-y.

myles

Bluedots Presentation

Time: February 1, 2006 (12:00pm-1:00pm)

Activity: Bluedots present their individual projects.

People: Myles, Crystal, Jonathon, Sammie, Caroline, Lauren, Eddie, Wesley, Leland, Matthew, Joey, David, and Daniel.

The Bluedots finally finished their individual projects and were presenting their work in Exlpore Zone for all to see. They were a little nervous, but they took their solar and IR cars, Intelplay movies, and power point video down to Explore Zone to show visitors and staff their inventions.

Although most of the visitors had left for the day, museum staff and other ALA students came to the museum to see their projects. Fortunately, the Bluedots took it very well and welcomed anyone that was interested. I was very excited for the Bluedots because this was their time to shine and challenge themselves to do greater things.

Many of the Bluedots had difficulty while working on their projects. Some of the problems that occurred were the labtops were not corporating, cars falling apart after hitting a wall, clay people falling apart, and powerpoints not downing loading. Lucky for us and the Bluedots, everything was working fine.

Crystal and Lauren working out minor details on her powerpoint.
















Eddie and his car.
















David gets a congradulations out of a
fellow ALA student after
seeing his video.













Sammie trying to make Leland's car to pop a wheely.















David showing visitors his Clay Animation
Movie.

















Wesley showing the Pico girls is solar car.

Preston showing the Pico group his
Microworld video game.

Eddie inviting the cameraman to come look at his car and cricket program.

Matt showcasing his marble run.