Over these past few sessions of STEM, 8th graders started working with Makey Makeys to have an introduction to programming. One project that the 8th graders have been working on is creating a holiday Christmas card. With this project the students used the Makey Makeys and scratch to make an interactive programmed Christmas card. Another activity the students the students are currently working on is using the Makey Makeys and scratch to create some type of game controller that will be able to work with online games. First, the students need to think about an idea, write the code in scratch, and then create a game controller out of the provided materials(card board, foil, tape, glue). Overall this experience went really well for the 8th graders because they were able to gain the knowledge of programming.
Author / lakeisha1514
Museum of Science and Industry
Last week our Hackshop students went to the museum of science and industry. When we was there we got to explore, find our way through the mirror maze, and also being able to screen print. When we finally got through the mirror maze, the students were able to get their height, and wing span which they thought was really cool. Afterwards we got to explore the museum a bit before went to our screen printing activty. Everyone seems to like the storm room because they could control tornadoes and hurricanes. Our last activity of the day was screen printing activity. The purpose of that activity was to bring the design an transfer it or shaved it into the block, then to put ink on the design to bring the image to life.
Down below are some pictures of the screen printing activity
Beginning of A New Year
Welcome to the 2017-2018 STEM Scholars Year. We are so excited for the new year and all of the good things that it will bring. The first class will be August 26, 2017 at Holy Trinity from 9:00am-12:00pm. Below is the schedule for the rest of the school year!
| Session | Dates | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | August 26, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 2 | September 16, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 3 | September 23, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 4 | October 7, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 5 | October, 14, 2017 | Field Trip- Museum of Science and Industry
9:00-12:00 5700 S Lake Shore Dr. Chicago, IL 60637 |
| 6 | November 4, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 7 | November 18, 2017 | Holy Trinity |
| 8 | December 16, 2017 | Holy Trinity (Christmas Party) |
| 9 | January 6, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 10 | January 27, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 11 | February 10, 2018 | Field Trip- Shedd Aquarium
9:00-12:00 1200 S Lake Shore Dr. Chicago, IL 60605 |
| 12 | February 24, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 13 | March 10, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 14 | March 24, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 15 | April 7, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 16 | April 21, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 17 | May 5, 2018 | Holy Trinity |
| 18 | May 19, 2018 | End of Year Celebration |
First Day Back!
Last week was our first week back at STEM, and we are so excited. Last week the students were able to get set up on Google Classroom, and receive their first assignment. We are excited for many other great times with your students this year.
Portfolios
Today in HackShop, we are finishing up our projects and portfolios for the end of the year. The students are using basic HTML to change their portfolios to the way they want it. Some of those changes are the color of the words, the font, and the background images. Down below are some of the students unfinished portfolios.
Free Geek
Last week, Hack Shop went on a field trip to Free Geek. Free Geek is an organization that provides recycled computers to the undeserved communities at a cheaper price. On our trip there we learned about the process of building an computer, and even got a chance to practice with some of it. Down below you will see some pictures of the field trip.
Livescribe Echo Smartpen
There is this new piece of technology that is out, that can be very useful especially for people who takes notes slowly during class, and that product is called the Livescribe Echo Smartpen. This is a normal ink-filled pen, but it has an extra component. That component is an audio recorder. When you are writing the notes, you can turn on this button to start recording the teacher’s voice. You can get it to your electronic device by having the pen being synced to the iPad or iPhone. This audio recorder can record up to 800 hours, and then it needs to be charged. Down below is an picture of the pen.
Those are all the functions of the pen
I personally like this pen because if you have a teacher that always lectures and you can’t take all the notes down, then you can use the pen. When you have the recording you can listen to it as many times as you like. This pen has also been proven to boost college students’ grades up.
Makey Makey Continued
This week in Hackshop the students are working on finishing up their Makey Makey projects they were working on. Down below will be a slideshow of every group and project that they are working on or finished.
Makey Makey controllers
Today in class we are working on making an controller or a holiday card to go with our Makey Makeys. You will see groups working on the projects up above. The cool thing about the controllers is that you can play games off the internet with your own controllers such as Pac-Man.
Have you heard of Lifi? It is 100 times better than Wifi!
Lifi is an new internet connection made by a man named Harald Haas at the University of Edinburgh. It has rumors that it works 100 times better Wifi. If you didn’t know, the fastest Wifi connection you can have is up to 1000 Mbps, so if you times that by 100 you will have 100,000 Mbps. The science group has tested it out in Tallin and Estonia. Some reviews from the people were that as soon as they click on something it instantly came up. The special thing that separates Lifi from Wifi is that it uses LED lights to give off the connection. That is also what makes it so secure because when you install it, the LED lights can only stay in that room. That way you can prevent hackers from hacking your network. It is not out yet because they still have a few kinks to work out, such as how are they going to install it in the house are they going to charge for each room in the house, or for the whole house. The other problem is how much is they are going to charge for the connection. Down below is an picture that shows you how the LED lights are going to work.
It shows you the how the light will be from the ceiling.