Maker Club Comes to End for the Year

As the Maker Club winds down for the year, students in the club have completed their Indiana Jones game. They have coded, wired, tested, recoded, rewired, and they now have a working game that will be open for students in the elementary school to play and test out. Check out their explanation for how the games works in the video below.

Makey Makey Game Update...We're Getting There

Students in the maker club have been hard at work trying to work out the kinks in their game that involves their tiled floor, Makey Makey, and the lines of code they wrote in Scratch. Here are some images and video that highlight the progress they've been making!

The images above show students in the club preparing to wire the Makey Makey to the floor they created. The Post-It notes on the tiles are there to help remind them what pattern on the floor is the correct path to take people who will play the game to the other side so they can retrieve an idol.

Having the floor wired isn't as easy as it seems. Once students finished wiring the Makey Makey to the floor, they connected to a computer and found that they still have a lot of things to work out in order to make their lines of code run.

This video shows how students are collaborating and working together to find solutions as they work on their project so that it can be successful. As students found out, they still have a ways to go before their game is complete

The creating continues...

A couple weeks ago, students were introduced to coding using Scratch 2.0. As makers, they've paired Scratch with Makey Makey, which allows students to create physical objects that can send commands to a computer. Currently, students are working together on creating an Indiana Jones-themed game. The plan is that those who play the game will need to figure out the floor plan that won't harm their scratch sprite so that they can retrieve an idol. Check out the pictures below to see how it's going!

Getting a feel for how to code using Scratch and how the software works with Makey Makey.

Laying the tiles for our game floor. 

Wiring the Makey Makey so that it corresponds with our strands of code. 

Using tin foil to construct wires that will connect our floor tiles to the Makey Makey.

Maker Club Has Officially Begun!

Today the Cadott Elementary School Library's Maker Club kicked off at 7:30 AM in the elementary library. Students learned about the club's maker manifesto and then divided into teams to explore starter projects they could make using littleBits. There will be more making, problem solving, creating, and inventing to come. For now, here are some images of what students accomplished today.

Students work on a prank handshake.

The prank handshake when it was completed.

Testing out the prank handshake. Wow! That was "shocking".

Creating Creatures

In a Lego Quest, students were challenged to design a creature using any combination of Legos. Their designs could be something that was real or something that they imagined on their own. Here are some of the creatures our elementary school students came up with!

Yesterday, 4th graders started exploring with the Creative Corner's MakeyMakey by designing some musical chairs. What started with them has crossed all of the grade levels coming into the library and a lot of students have been contributing their own touches, testing out how the chairs work, and just having fun!

As the project develops, students hope to have a set of chairs that will allow others to sit on them and play. This will take a bit of work and some ingenuity, but I think they're going to make it. Check out the photos below to see the progress they have made and check back to see additional changes and accomplishments they have together.

3rd Grader Work at Being Creative

While in the library today, 3rd grade students explored the creative corner and many worked on the "Maximum Height" Lego challenge. Others decided to make some of their own creations. Take a look at the cool things they made!