Making Electronics for Education HackChat Transcript

annmarie.p.thomas I'm an associate professor of Engineering and Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. There I run the Playful Learning Lab, where we developed Squishy Circuits, and other playful ways to approach education.

shamylmansoor Love the name of the lab!

Marko Shiva Pavlovic Hi @annmarie.p.thomas

Sophi Kravitz What other projects are you working on there?

annmarie.p.thomas I also served as the founding executive director of Maker Ed (makered.org) and wrote "Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Education."

annmarie.p.thomas Other projects (shhh! ;-) ) are a soon to be announced education project with the band OK Go. and a Circus Science project.

Marko Shiva Pavlovic Squishy love the name for the gadgets

Sophi Kravitz this video is one of my favs:

annmarie.p.thomas If you love education and OK Go... we'd love to hear from you : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FFkogK2z8g5UkStV-8Brihm-OqR01jXdoHipLhSRKFo/viewform?ts=5947f09d&edit_requested=true

annmarie.p.thomas Squishy Circuits info can be found here: http://squishycircuits.com/

annmarie.p.thomas My research tends to focus on the intersection of art, tech, play and engineering. So it's an honor to get to cohost today!

Sophi Kravitz we're happy you could join!

Marko Shiva Pavlovic

Using Squishy Circuits, you can create sculptures that light up, move, make noise and more!

Jasmine Brackett >> whooooo???

Jasmine Brackett It's a woman

Sophi Kravitz there is a sheet that we use for discussion, but does anyone have anything they want to ask off the bat?

Joan Horvath I'll do a shout out for LA area folks: Annmarie will be keynoting this event in West LA Aug 3-4: https://www.windwardschool.org/page/Design2017

Sophi Kravitz and I'm curious to know how many people here in the chat are making kits/ products for education?

shamylmansoor Me!!!

Joan Horvath We write books and teach people how to use such things...

morganrallen ~sort of

annmarie.p.thomas For those of you who are making kits/products for education- I'd love to hear which ones you work on!

ctag Sort of here too

auclark1800 Eventually, I hope!

Ben Hibben I am; we (Mr Blinky Bling) specialize in custom-branded beginner-friendly soldering kits but have plans to do more elaborate curriculum in the future.

shamylmansoor I've made some simple kits, but mostly working on curriculum design and integration for schools http://learnobots.com/product/

Boian Mitov Well... I have developed Visuino up to very big extend to help kids learn to program Arduino type boards ;-)

Dhrupal R Shah Hi @annmarie.p.thomas we are working on developing evive http://evive.cc

annmarie.p.thomas We should also acknowledge that "education" means a lot of different things to different people. Are we designing for learning, and/or for formal education settings, or libraries, or museums or schools. All have different needs!

Julio Vazquez I wish to someday make my own educational kit! My dream is to use cosplay accessories as a way to get the kids' interest in electronics

morganrallen I've been making "Circuit Tiles" for use in our museum. Single purpose block connected with banana plugs

Sophi Kravitz People posting projects, please post links and twitter handles

auclark1800 What museum? @morganrallen

shamylmansoor I've also been mainly focusing on how to include making in standard school curriculums which we call curriculum integration

Boian Mitov And I have worked with Makerfabs to help them introduce this IoT starter kit, specifically designed for inexperienced in electronics:

https://www.makerfabs.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=311

annmarie.p.thomas Love this list. One of the questions from @auclark1800 asks about resources for library makerspaces. Love this. Many libraries (including ones here in St. Paul) have makerspaces.

Mark I have ideas/plans/hardware/first attempts, etc, but could use some help pulling it together. References and resources would be helpful.

annmarie.p.thomas Anyone out there have favorite resources for library makerspaces? The American Library Association (ALA LITA) has been very active in this area.

Joan Horvath Check out our books at www.nonscriptum.com

Joan Horvath or @JoanHorvath on twitter, https://hackaday.io/joanhorvath here

Boian Mitov I have idea... how about we start a project on Hackaday, where people can join and list "education" related products etc.

Dhrupal R Shah We are developing @evive toolkit : a STEAM learning Kit for students and beginners to make DIY projects and enjoy Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. A lot of kits do well for T, E, and some for A out of STEAM. Apart from general programming, electronics, robotics, we are building science experiments and educational aids using evive to make projects like Measuring time periods of pendulum, or what happens when we drop a magnet inside a solenoid. Still we want to expand to cover M (Mathematics). @annmarie.p.thomas how can students learn or grab interest in mathematics with DIY maker projects?

shamylmansoor Makerspace Playbook is a good starting point for makerspaces

Boian Mitov so we can use it as a common repository and "Education" collaboration project

Boian Mitov BTW: Evive is supported by Visuino :-)

Boian Mitov Thank you @Dhrupal R Shah for sending me Evive prototype for it :-)

Joan Horvath @Dhrupal R Shah check out our Hackaday Prize project, https://hackaday.io/project/20621-hacker-calculus

Jasmine Brackett Evive is coming soon to Tindie.com

annmarie.p.thomas From @Dhrupal R Shah "how can students learn or grab interest in mathematics with DIY maker projects?"

Good question. This is a common topic of discussion when schools are trying to integrate "making" into the curriculum.

Pankaj Kumar Verma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO4amK40RrQ&feature=youtu.be

YOUTUBE

Jasmine Brackett We're getting a lot of interest from schools and library makerspaces.

annmarie.p.thomas When I teach teachers how to create design challenges and projects, we often spend a lot of time discussing what we want students to get out of the experience. Integrating mathematical calculations is something that you have to be cognizant of planning for.

Boian Mitov @Jasmine Brackett When Evive appears on Tindie, pls. let me know... Will help spread the word... :-)

harlie says:12:16 PM We (Alorium Technology) developed an Arduino - compatible FPGA board called XLR8 (http://www.aloriumtech.com/xlr8/) that would be a great board for learning about FPGAs.

kelu124 @annmarie.p.thomas - I'm working on a high speed pi 0 DAQ to provide students with a cheap oscilloscipe, and for educational purposes a dev kit for understanding and learning about ultrasound imaging. Not too easy though, but educational enough for science students and researhers ;)

shamylmansoor @Joan Horvath Hacker-calculus is pretty cool!

annmarie.p.thomas One way my teachers have done it is to have students "shop" for their project supplies and thus making them calculate what they need in advance.

kelu124 @harlie excellent !

Dhrupal R Shah nice point

annmarie.p.thomas @Sophi Kravitz is there a way to create a list of all of these projects people are sharing? I can't wait to look at them all.

Joan Horvath Our hackaday prize last year set up an exchange for teachers of visually impaired to post things they wanted modeled, with the intent that teachers of mainstream students would fulfill them. But we have not had many takers on the fulfillment side. Check it out! https://hackaday.io/project/11312-3d-prints-for-teachers-of-the-visually-impaired

annmarie.p.thomas Quite a few of the questions on the google doc are about the high cost of education kits. Makers who are selling your electronics projects to educators--- what has been your experience in setting prices?

kelu124 @annmarie.p.thomas - for university, the cost of BOM * 1.2 seems a good point

kelu124 (plus taxes and such, but also depends on if you want to make money or not ;) )

adamek I think you can show big part of math with signal generator, some passive elements and scope

Radomir Dopieralski only 20% overhead? that sounds risky

annmarie.p.thomas In my experience, to sell in the *formal* K-12 education market, you need to create products that aren't going to change dramatically from year to year. A complaint I've heard from educators is buying sets of kits and then having the company not support them anymore or change things so substantially that the ones they bought became outdated super fast.

kelu124 I do this on small series (a consequence of having a very small niche)

Ben Hibben Our kit prices are a function of the cost of the PCBs mostly, though if we use flashing LEDs those cost us $1 each and so drive up the price a bit. Because we do a lot of short-run stuff with custom branding/silkscreen on it instead of a mass run of one project with one logo on it we also have to deal with the fact we can't usually reach "economies of scale" unless someone orders at least 100 units. At that point we drop the price quite a bit to pass along the savings we get.

Charlie Lindahl Sorry for being late ... anyone else out there using Rachel (RPI-based) with Worlds Possible?

Charlie Lindahl We're promoting this in south Houston now. Pretty darned impressive set of tools.

annmarie.p.thomas @Charlie Lindahl do you have a link? I'm not familiar with the project!

Charlie Lindahl See http://worldpossible.org/

kelu124 @Radomir Dopieralski yup, I'm running small series (which I'm myself using) .. and @annmarie.p.thomas indeed, having at least retrocompatibility is essential between different versions.

Charlie Lindahl Quoting from their website : "1 in 3 children worldwide lack access to a quality education. Many times, the students are in class, the teachers are there, but no one is learning. Without access to modern teaching tools, textbooks, and ideas, students also lack access to hope and opportunity."

Joan Horvath One of the big lessons learned we see in schools is that storage space for student in-work projects is almost always the biggest problem. That, and fitting making into 50 minute chunks.

Charlie Lindahl We are delivering a copy of the internet. An educational slice of free, "OER" (Open Educational Resources) content, packaged on low cost or old computer hardware, directly to communities that cannot afford or cannot reach the internet at all. We are building a digital library of the World's leading online educational resources for download and use offline: "RACHEL" (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning).

Charlie Lindahl (from their page also).

Charlie Lindahl I can answer tech questions about this, we've been using it for more than a year now.

Sophi Kravitz from @morganrallen Related: What are prefered tools to document projects with students?

Pankaj Kumar Verma @adamek we have included a mini-oscilloscope and a function generater in our device and we are currently working on making good projetcs with them. You can see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHnaoqdOgPY, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO4amK40RrQ&feature=youtu.be and http://learn.evive.cc/?t=FunctionGenerator. Suggestions for more projects are invited.

Charlie Lindahl It includes Kahn Academy & Wikipedia & other materials on a totally self-contained SD card on a Raspberry PI (no internet required; no Internet access required for that matter)

annmarie.p.thomas Storage is definitely an issue for schools. A related issue is what to do when schools can't buy enough devices for everyone in the class to use one. I love some of Autodesk's 123Circuits tools as they allow students to test the circuits digitally before working with the hardware. Provides an option if you need to have groups sharing hardware.

morganrallen (related to my first question)

shamylmansoor @Charlie Lindahl what about places where English is not the primary language..

annmarie.p.thomas I love the question @morganrallan posted: "What tools/resources can

I use to improve my abilities to communicate ideas and procedures (especially around safety)?" Ideas folks?

Sophi Kravitz hey everyone, please list your product in the sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fWNiFG9QeFxzePJmht-eGTD6wiGzijgvHCti3PmMrQA/edit#gid=0 with a link and a twitter handle if you have one

Sophi Kravitz and let's stay with the questions

Dhrupal R Shah @annmarie.p.thomas we thought of making a complete package for education + beginners into this field.

We call our approach as "Half Cooked Food". If we give too many individual parts to students, they feared from getting started. A very intense training/trainer's involvement is required. Also learning many varieties of topic together (programming concepts + electronics + mechanical), it becomes little hard for 10+ yrs students. So we thought of giving a partially prepared platform to start on themselves.

morganrallen safety has been a big concern for me as I'm having more students working with me in the woodshop

Sophi Kravitz @morganrallen do they have to pass a safety training?

Boian MitovOk.... I just created this project: "Electronics for Education Initiative"

https://hackaday.io/project/26047-electronics-for-education-initiative

Sophi Kravitz and if not, that would dramatically cut down on the issues

morganrallen presently no, we're working to put those procedures in place

Boian Mitov Anyone interested in joying and listing the resources there ;-)

annmarie.p.thomas Safety is a perpetual discussion and challenge in many makerspaces and classrooms. Also dealing with what people "percieve" as risky.

morganrallen (also, they're off for the summer)

Sophi Kravitz so this is a good time for you to make a safety class :)

Sophi Kravitz anyone else have ideas about how best to communicate safety?

morganrallen @annmarie.p.thomas with our last group we started with just drills, many students had never even used one

morganrallen that "perceived" hurdle was huge for many of them

Joan Horvath For 3D printers the issues are different - sort of excessive respect (as in, "Don't touch that!")

morganrallen thankfully most came out the other side reassured and more confident

Sophi Kravitz it's a good place to start, drills are important! :)

Sophi Kravitz @Joan Horvath how do you teach safety for 3D printers?

annmarie.p.thomas It also relates to @Joan Horvath 's question about how to overcome "tech fear" even among the teachers.

Radomir Dopieralski especially when breaking things is costly

Joan Horvath For the most part for 3D printers we tell them to ventilate the room and not to stick their hands in it. There's not a lot else to say really

Joan Horvath It's a bigger issue to get the printers away from woodworking! (eye roll)

morganrallen that's same for us, and PLA only

Radomir Dopieralski so you want people to not be afraid, but to not break things -- I discovered that using very cheap kits and telling the students that they are cheap helps a bit

Sophi Kravitz To move things along, can we talk about the cost of things? Next question: Hi, I'm developing low cost kits for teaching STEAM subjects in Pakistan, as I feel that the biggest problem in most countries adapting to these teaching tools is the high cost! What do you think we need to do to get the costs down? Even a Lego Mindstorm EV3 kits if bought in Pakistan costs around $650 whcih isn't affordable for most people here.

anthony perry has joined this room.12:30 PM

annmarie.p.thomas The challenge is that sometimes the "very cheap kits" are more prone to breakage.

Boian Mitov How to overcome a teacher's fear... - get them Arduino board with couple of really easy to use modules and Visuino... and trust me, in 10 minutes, they will have no fear of it... ;-)

Radomir Dopieralski @annmarie.p.thomas I think that's good -- you get experience by breaking things

Radomir Dopieralski @annmarie.p.thomas and you learn to debug broken stuff

Sophi Kravitz .. and fixing them

Charlie Lindahl As to cost: the Rachel online materials are free. Raspberry PIs are about $35.

Ben Hibben Cheap kits often lack documentation and may include a higher degree of manufacturing errors as well

Jasmine Brackett Yeah, it's hard to do that with a group in 50 minutes though.

Julio Vazquez In Mexico, due to the USD/MXN conversion rate, kits can become very expensive... So, most of the time I rely on chinese clones: Cheaper, but less documented and prone to unexpected errors

annmarie.p.thomas It depends on whether you have the budget to replace things. Which is often a problem in classrooms. Many schools get grant funds to buy initial sets of materials, but find it harder to get funds for replacements.

Charlie Lindahl Also consider using cardboard-based materials .. you can do some really impressive stuff with simple cardboard and appropriate models & kits ( see WikiPedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_modeling).

Norbert Heinz My approach is reusing what you can find in old printers/scanners. I have build a couple of CNC machines, my latest is on Hackaday:

https://hackaday.io/project/10299-self-replicating-cnc-for-194-or-more-countries

Boian Mitov @annmarie.p.thomas in terms of "cheap kits" my personal preference and just Nano boards and simple modules, with Dupon Female-Female wires - very durable, and the only thing that tends to break are the wires - easy to replace. Avoid breadboards...

Ben Hibben I personally think it's important to avoid using cheap/inferior stuff as they can be fragile (as mentioned) or difficult to use/understand and thus can accidentally reenforce the notion that this is "hard" when it;s just hard because the kit is crap.

annmarie.p.thomas We created Squishy Circuits specifically as a way to do electronics cheaply (and that's why we shared all the recipes and how to.s)

Charlie Lindahl Check out CardBoard Automata @ https://tinkering.exploratorium.edu/cardboard-automata

Charlie Lindahl We also have used Squishy Circuits (bought the kits as well). WONDERFUL concept & execution !!!

morganrallen squishy circuits has been a huge success with young visitors in our museum

annmarie.p.thomas Cardboard is awesome. For "cheap" electronics, it's also important to ask what you are really trying to accomplish.

Sophi Kravitz Next question is about reaching an audience: What's the best way to reach groups that might want our **** kits?

Charlie Lindahl True. The nice thing about the cardboard automata is that it emphasizes a lot of mechanical engineering (no electronics required).

annmarie.p.thomas Re: reaching audience, it helps to figure out who your audience is. Much of my work is classroom focused so we find that getting teachers involved in testing/trying things early is important, and also makes them our best advocates in getting the word out.

Charlie Lindahl Reaching groups: go find your local makerspace (most cities have them now). Also libraries, or, even better, libraries with makerspaces!

annmarie.p.thomas Running workshops (at libraries, maker faires, etc.) is also helpful because you can show people, in person, how to use the tools.

Charlie Lindahl In Houston we have over 9 makerspaces, and the main monster makerspace, TXRX labs, works regularly with schools (all levels) as well as with home schooling organizations.

annmarie.p.thomas If you are trying to reach larger audiences, conferences like NSTA (for science teachers) are an option. But it can be pricy to echibit at those.

Joan Horvath Try some of the smaller conferences, like California Science Teachers Assn or (insert state here). Nebraska keeps inviting us...

annmarie.p.thomas Great suggestion Joan!

Sophi Kravitz We're just about out of time. anyone else have a question

Joan Horvath @annmarie.p.thomas we are looking forward to your keynote on Aug 3, West Los Angeles (we are presenting several talks too!), https://www.windwardschool.org/page/Design2017

annmarie.p.thomas And feel free to email me if you have any follow up questions. I'm happy to chat.

Jasmine Brackett We're starting to identify classroom friendly products on Tindie and adding sections to the site that make it easier for educators to find suitable items.

annmarie.p.thomas @Joan Horvath see you there!

morganrallen Two of us from Chabot are doing to ask if we can attend!

Charlie Lindahl Looking forward to the next one. Sorry I jumped in at the very end. Reviewed the chat and it is fascinating.

Joan Horvath For any public school people- there are waivers if you are paying own way. Contact

Jasmine Brackett Yes, looking forward to DMCC. I'll be there for Tindie

Sophi Kravitz Thanks for coming @annmarie.p.thomas this was a good topic, we should do it again.

Jasmine Brackett Thank you!

Ben Hibben Thanks everyone!

annmarie.p.thomas Bye all!

Shayna Thank you!

morganrallen Thanks!

shamylmansoor (y)