Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024
Newton, KS -> Newton, KS
0 mi, 0 ft elevation
Like JD, I often have butterflies in my stomach on the mornings of learning festivals. However, by our 4th learning festival I feel that we've started to find our rhythm. The Newton Public Library was just a 10 minute walk away from our host’s house. After arriving at the library we quickly set up our laptops, physics demos, strawberry DNA kits, and Rice Krispie ingredients and were ready to go.
While I originally brought the laptops on the trip to teach Scratch, an introductory programming language, lately I’ve instead been using them to show the kids Tinkercad, a website that lets students design 3D models. For the first half of the activity, Sophia teaches students about the many applications of 3D printing, including lesser-known technologies like 3D printing houses or even cake. For the second half, I show students how to make bubble wands in Tinkercad, which we then print out on our 3D printer by the end of the day.
My favorite part of the learning festival is seeing what students create. Sometimes we get really pretty bubble wands:
And sometimes students don’t quite follow directions, which is equally cool to see!
For the last class period, I didn’t teach 3D printing since there was a backlog of bubble wands to print. Getting them ready for printing is a bit tricky since students often create impossible floating designs and disconnected pieces that I tweak a bit before printing. I try to stay as close to the original creative vision as possible but sometimes compromises must be made to turn an ambitious idea into a physical object.
After getting the last batch ready to print I spent my free period wandering around and checking out the other learning festivals. I had helped out with Physics of Sound previously but had my first experience learning how to extract DNA from strawberries and finding out that concrete is held together by calcium silicate hydrate (which I repeated many many times along with the students!)
Actually maybe handing out the 3D prints to excited students at the end of the day is my favorite part of the learning festival. Sometimes students don’t get quite what they expected (Sophia had to squash a castle because it would have taken too long to print, but thankfully the student laughed when he saw it and seemed happy anyway).
After the learning festival we got ice cream at Braum’s, which I would give a solid A on the Spokes ice cream tier list. After that we went back to the house and headed out for pizza with Orvin and Janet. Lots of calorie dense food which is what we like to see :).
With another fun learning festival complete, I felt rejuvenated from the chaos of yesterday (recall JD and I cowering in a ditch) and ready to hit the road again tomorrow!
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