Tinkering With Arduino in Tinkercad
Tinkercad is a free service that I used for the last two years to introduce my students to designing and building Arduino-powered circuits, cars, and simple machines. As I wrote back in January, Tinkercad was great for introdcuing Arduino in a pandemic. Besides the Arduino aspect, Tinkercad is also a great place to find inspiration […]
Two Search Refinement Tips That Helped My Students Today
The students in one of my classes are currently working on some Arduino projects of their own choosing. A few of them had the idea to build and program model cars. The trouble they ran into is that we didn’t have any Bluetooth modules and a lot of the plans they were looking at called […]
A Good Video Series for Introducing Arduino
Earlier this week I shared how I used Tinkercad to introduce my students to key concepts in Arduino design and programming. One of the supplementary materials that I posted in Google Classroom for that course is a series of introductory videos produced by Bob at I Like to Make Stuff. In a three-part series he […]
Introducing Arduino in a Pandemic
Watching my students design and build Arduino projects is one of the things that I enjoy the most about my job. We’ve just gotten to the part of the school year in which I introduce my students to using Arduino. This year, because of our hybrid model of some students in class and some online […]
The Arduino Design Project I’m Doing With Students Who Don’t Have Materials at Home
Like a lot of other schools, mine closed without much more than a few hours notice. We went home on a Friday afternoon and Sunday evening we were told that we were not going back. My 9th grade computer science principles students were really starting to hit their stride with the various Arduino projects they […]
A Great Series for Introducing or Reviewing Arduino Programming Concepts
Arduino programming was one of the things that we were really starting to get rolling on just before school closed. Now that my school is closed and we’re doing remote teaching and learning, I’m using EDpuzzle to create review activities for my students. This week I used EDpuzzle to create lessons based on a great […]
Four Tips for Facilitating Classroom Arduino Projects
This year I have been doing a lot of Arduino projects with students in my Intro to Computer Science Principles course. Some of the projects have gone quite well and some not so well. I’ve talked about these in a couple of podcast episodes, but I haven’t written anything about Arduino until now. If you’re […]
How My Students Are Using Google Sheets With Their Arduino Projects
The students in one of my classes are starting to make some Arduino-powered gadgets. I let them choose what they wanted to build so I have some that are making cars, one making a Bluetooth-connected locks, and couple making a variation of this Hacking STEM project. In other words, there are a lot of things […]
Three Good Places to Find Hands-on STEM Activities
On a fairly regular basis I’m asked for recommendations for hands-on STEM activities. In fact, just this morning I answered an email from a reader who was seeking that recommendation. Here are three of my go-to recommendations for hands-on STEM activities. Microsoft has two excellent and free resources for those who are seeking ideas for […]
The Short List of Physical Tech Products That I Recommend
From time to time I am asked for recommendations on the purchase of physical tech products. I generally don’t make recommendations for school-wide or other large scale purchases, but I will make recommendations for small purchases. Here’s the short list of physical tech products that I recommend today. Elegoo UNO Super Starter Kit for Arduino […]
