For a 1 day school holiday introductory Arduino workshop for beginner 7 – 10 year olds in our Museum, do you have a suggestion for a fun final activity project? We were thinking about something like an monster or robot, built out of strategically placed LED’s on a breadboard, who appears animated eg ‘walks’ or ‘jumps’. Love to know your thoughts…
This sounds like a blast! I like your idea about using the Arduino to illuminate a series of images…I am assuming like a NEON sign. You could even have the kids illustrate individual panels for a storyboard or comic strip, then have them take turns telling the story of their monster/robot while illuminating their animations.
I was also thinking that making a city would be fun. They could use their Arduino’s to light the stop lights, street lamps, billboards, shop fronts, etc. They could be in charge of constructing their block out of say, LEGOs, and use LEDs to light the different sections. You could even get tricky and have them use limit switches to detect a car at a light or someone entering a building or even photo-cells to detect day/night.
Another idea would be to have them use their Arduino’s ability to make music, through its PWM function. We had a lot of fun with our freshman when they get to this section of the curriculum. They are given a small speaker and instructed to recreate a piece of music. We actually had a kid who made his play the Tetris theme song with melody and accompaniment. You could even go a step further and have them use simple buttons on a breadboard and have them make a musical instrument.
Here is a good idea 3 kids had from Children’s Arduino Workshop on MAKE. It could tangent into a “invent your own” activity where you supply the kids with various materials and have them invent a project:
And a cool synth project from Sylvia’s Simple Arduino Projects:
I hope this has helped generate some ideas for your workshop and best of luck with the kids!
Don’t forget, everyone is invited to ask a question!
“Ask an Educator” questions are answered by Adam Kemp, a high school teacher who has been teaching courses in Energy Systems, Systems Engineering, Robotics and Prototyping since 2005.