Sphero Trial 4!

Trial 4! Its amazing to think that we have met now three times! Only two of the girls were able to make it but it was still a wonderful meeting. First, I want to talk about Science Saturday that happened a couple weeks ago. It was a community event for people to attend. It was all about hands on science activities. We were able to show off Sphero. We borrowed two more Spheros from the school as well as some iPad's and we had students who came get a chance to paint a streak in a mural (ended up three total) that are now hanging in the Library at the school. We heard comments like "This is SO cool!" and "Can I try?!". Most often, the kids didn't want to give up their turn. It was a huge success and we have three wonderful murals now hanging in the school to commemorate the day. (see the pictures below!)

So, for this meeting the girls wanted to continue with the house project. They continued to work on their program. Last time, they had a hard time getting the program right. So this time around they decided to start with the angles of the house as a starting point. They worked diligently and tested their program A LOT! More times that I can count. They ended up starting their program over, and working on the part that was giving them the issue, first and then adding what they knew worked. It was a success! I LOVED listing to their rich conversations about what happened and what they were going to try next. I was especially intrigued at the math they were preforming seamlessly without even thinking about it. They were looking at angles and speed and time as they were all factors in creating a program that worked for their purpose. They went on to test on the board with paint!

As you can see, it didn't exactly go as planned... They ran it a couple times and got inconsistent results. They couldn't figure out why. So, they wanted to try it on the ground. We did just that and see what happened... 

 

It totally did it correctly! So, they learned that the table we were using was not level and that was causing the program to not run correctly which ultimately made an incomplete picture. (WOAH! How awesome is that?!) See the finished picture below! 

Completed final house!!! 

Then, we had a high school student reach out to us about doing some long exposure photography with Sphero using the lights. THAT WAS WAY COOL. We are waiting for the final pictures from the student which will be posted when we get them. It was awesome to see everyone working together and to see another medium being used to create artwork! 

Finally, the girls got their next challenge from me. I want them to create a flower as wall art for my apartment. They started out with a sketch and from there went into programing. They wanted to start with the middle of the flower. They didn't think Sphero could make a circle... but they played around with the app and found out that they can control the right and left motors to create a circle! It was awesome. They did something they didn't think they could do at first. We ran out of time to do much more than that but they were testing in the hall, and I would bet they are going to make great progress next time! 

The girls are testing out their program. They are using sticky notes to see where Sphero starts and ends to see if it ends up in the same spot. 

Sphero Trial 3

Sphero has gone on a lot of adventures recently!

Most recently the girls have been experimenting with colors and textures. This time when we met we didn't focus on the programing. Rather, we focused on how to make Sphero's trail different patterns. The girls attached:

• Rubber Bands 
• Scrunchies 
• Tinsel 
• Glitter

They attached the different textures to Sphero, rolled him in paint and let him go! They controlled him using the "drive" function of the app. They took turns and created a beautiful mural!

Adding Glitter! 

Sphero "Greg" is covered in tinsel. 

What I loved most about this interaction with the girls and Sphero was the conversations that happened between students. They were actively brainstorming, and talking through problems they encountered and things they wanted to try. It was amazing to see how much they were learning and thinking about what they were doing but that they were also laughing and having fun the whole time. They were constantly smiling and laughing- proof that learning can happen in experiences that are enriching and engaging and FUN!!

Working on the house program. 

We were working and I had posted some pictures to Twitter and we connected with an assistant principal who made a paint request for the girls to try. He wanted them to paint a house. The girls went to work right away. They were excited to have a purpose and a challenge. They went and started to figure out what shapes they needed to create and started testing in the hallway. They had a particularly hard time with the angles but they kept testing it out. They ended up doing 9 trials before we had to leave for the day. They didn't quite get it, and they were frustrated but they were also persistent. After they tried it with paint a few times unsuccessfully they decided they needed to do more test runs in the hallway next time before they used paint again. 

They ended up putting blobs of paint on the paper to try to drive through vs. having Sphero covered in the paint.