Blink Experiment #2073

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#41

Definitely a more complex activity and would take more explanation, discussion, and oversight.

#42

Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?

This lesson would fit into a unit on electricity or programming. It does focus on the physical aspects so I would probably focus on the flow of electricity.

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?

I have done similar programs with my students (piper kit). It was easy for them to figure out where to put the components on the bread board because much of it was covered up but they often did not push the components in all the way, would lose pieces or break them.
My solution: Only give the students what they need to do the program (at least for the early lesson). This will encourage students to be more careful as the supplies do not seem endless.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?

Offering support and encouragement. Managing supplies. Watching student body language and stopping frustration before it turns into rage quitig.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?

Students will take turns being the instruction reader, component placer, and coder. They will be expected to document their learning and thought process on their whiteboards

#43

This was a lot of fun!! Glad to feel like this is something I can do!

2 Likes
#44

Good tip to distribute the parts as the students need them. Sometimes it causes distraction because they want to use everything as they see it so passing out the only parts they need for the experiment is a great idea.

#45

It doesn’t really fit in my curriculum, but it does with 4th grade. I would probably introduce this during my Technology after-school club before attempting with a whole class!

I would definitely put them in groups with defined jobs. then let them switch roles and redo it. Student success would look like students using accountable talk to discuss what they are doing and working together to overcome obstacles or figure out why it didn’t work.

1 Like
#46

I think that this will be a great opportunity to get the students to realize what happens when you add more than one bulb on and alter the program. Also getting them to see the difference between powered and solar.

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#47

I did this experiment while my daughter was competing in the first Lego League last week. Those competitions take several hours and the parents sometimes have long hours of waiting so I did this activity.

Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum?
In my elementary school we have a STEM night program for families every month. One of our programs is about electricity around christmas. I would make a demo on how to design christmas ornaments using the kit; how ever I would make some experiments to substitute the breadboard for conductive ink.

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
They would need extra support in learning how circuits work and how does the energy have to flow in order to create serial lights.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
The teacher will model the activity to create christmas ornaments using conductive ink during the STEM night.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
After completing the activity the parents and students will create their own and original christmas ornament.

This is a video about our STEM nights program
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGWgXXXqjZA

1 Like
#48

This is a great lesson that the students really get a kick out of. They can make a tiny light show with it. They do not need very much support unless they put the led in backwards (and who hasn’t done that!?) My role would be to just sit back and watch them play. That is when they really understand how making changes to the program affects the circuit.

2 Likes
#49

I did this activity with one of my Middle Makers students. He really enjoyed it. He was thinking of using it for Christmas ornaments. We went from one blinking light to 10 LED’s. The instructions were very clear and he was successful in completing it.

3 Likes
#50

This would be such a fun twist on holiday decorations. I would love to use it for a Hallowe’en themed something where the blinking lights could possibly look like glowing eyes in a dark forest…

1 Like
#51

What a fun lesson with so many possible adaptations! How about setting this up to perform a lightshow while Owl City’s Fireflies plays in the background?!

Following the knock knock activity, I love that this allows for the use of various outputs. I could see this being adapted to address so many learning opportunities for my boys.

I’d love to work on adapting this so that individual inputs cause individual lights to turn on. Something for me to explore further!

2 Likes
#52

Here are a couple fun Halloween-themed lessons you can try!

#53

If I were to teach this lesson to my class, student success looks different for each student. My hope is that all students will get to the blinking light. In addition, to the first blinking activity, I would hope that other students would continue to the answer challenges in this activity. This is a great problem-solving activity and when comparing the output when changing the milliseconds in the code leads to great discussion.

#54

Those students that fly through the lesson can also help out the students that are struggling. Providing that mentoring is a great learning experience too.

#55

Rich platform for some of the basics of electronics and programming logic. An extension that might be fun is to have students setup and run drag racing lights, often called “Christmas Tree” that sequence from red to yellow to green. The timing of the lights would be up to them.

#56

I like to idea of the ornament or a card of some sort that lights up when open or just blinks on top of a tree design.

#57

This was a fun experiment that I did with my husband for help. When adding another string of cables for an additional LED light, he found out the initial light was defective, so adding a new light and adjusting the code allowed us to have multiple lights with various speeds. This would be a great lesson to help students with trial and error. I would not be able to manage too many groups doing this at once, so it would take some staggering of groups to help give the best learning opportunity.

#58

This is a fun experiment to try! I enjoyed trying new things and trying to get them to work.

  1. Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)? I think using the photoresistor might be something I could do with my science classes. It would be fun to wire it up with the LED on steady and then try different colors of light to see how they affect the LED’s brightness. Will it change if I use red light which is lower on the EM spectrum compared to violet? They could also see how the brightness changes if they move the sensor further from the light source. This could drive a discussion about the properties of light.

  2. Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful? My students have not had any experience with wiring circuits, so they would need help at first. It would serve as a great intro to circuits though.

  3. If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson? For this lesson, I would need to be an active coach. I feel like many of students would need help figuring it out at first. Once they do, I could step back and just be a cheerleader as they realize they can do lots of things.

  4. If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like? Student success would vary greatly by class and student. For some, just getting what is given to work would be success. For others, I would hope they would be able to figure out how to improve upon what is given in the lesson.

#59

I found this challenging because of how small everything is and how close together the slots are. I was able to get multiple lights to light up.