Monday, November 30, 2015

TAV (Terrestrial Aquatic Vehicle)

This is a long overdue post for a fun little science project...  My child came up with the idea for TAV (Terrestrial Aquatic Vehicle) and designed it a few months ago, for a class project in Grade 3. Interestingly, he designed it not for a Science project, but an Economics one! His classroom had a project called "Market Place", where students are supposed to come up with ideas for little stores and businesses: make & sell products, earn (fake) money and then use the money for their expenses including living costs, education, retirement savings, etc. A simulation of real-life economics...

The kid decided to create a Tech company and recruited a couple of his classmates for the project. He came up with the idea for "TAAV - Terrestrial Aquatic Aerial Vehicle".

Saturday, November 14, 2015

S4A (Scratch for Arduino) Project - A Math Game using LEDs: Version 2, with a Single Sprite

Here is a much simpler version of the previous Math Game using LEDs: The aim is to design an interactive Math video game, where you ask questions and if your answer is right, an LED lights up. In the previous version, you had two sprites that communicate with each other, checking the values of variables. In this much simpler version, there is just a single sprite - the Arduino sprite itself, that asks questions and checks the answers for correctness. This version takes away any complication involved in maintaining a communication channel between the sprites, and is probably the easiest way to start off. The following is a formal lesson plan for the same; a set of slides are also provided. The assignment is intended for students in Grade 5 and higher.

Aim

A gentle introduction to the Arduino hardware, with S4A (Scratch for Arduino) as the IDE.

Objective

Introduce the students to the Arduino platform, via a simple project to light up an LED. The students use their knowledge of reactive programming & conditionals