PicoBoard with Scratch 3 hour workshop details
Remember to take good pictures. Examples can be found here: http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/2242.
Ages: 4th grade to high school
Equipment: Laptops with Scratch 1.4 loaded, mice and chargers, PicoBoards (1 per 2 students) and one extra laptop and PicoBoard for the instructor
Musical Pickles: Pickels, wipes to use to clean hands and tables, wax paper to put the pickles on, wooden dowels, paper clips, a knife to cut the pickles with (cut in half in width or cut into chunks about 1 inch wide - do this ahead of time).
Reaction game: aluminum foil, rubber bands, tape
Drum kit: bottle caps (4 per team of 2 people), aluminum foil, tape
Printouts of https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ec6cxvx3tn0qrh/PicoBoard%2520Reaction%2520Time%2520Mat.pdf?dl=0 and https://www.dropbox.com/s/siczfcknalgncmh/PicoBoard%2520Making%2520Music.pdf?dl=0
Resources:
http://www.picocricket.com/pdfs/Getting_Started_With_PicoBoards.pdf
Wireless issues- call 404-478-7310 for any problems with Wandering Wi-Fi
Driver for PicoBoard http://www.picocricket.com/picoboardsetupUSB.html
If you have trouble see the troubleshooting part of http://www.picocricket.com/pdfs/Getting_Started_With_PicoBoards.pdf. Try selecting the port on the watcher by right clicking on it near the top. Make sure that only one copy of Scratch is up. Make sure that the PicoBoard driver is installed.
Before each workshop
During each workshop
15 min. - Do the Pre-workshop Survey. Have the pre-workshop survey up on the computers so that the students do this right away when they arrive. Have the internet already working. Create bookmarks for the pre and post surveys.
15 minutes - Introduce the workers and have each person say what he or she likes about computing. Tell them where the bathrooms are. Tell them that Scratch is free software that they can download at home. Show them the PicoBoard and how to show what each of the sensors returns (right click on slider sensor value and select show ScratchBoard watcher). Ask what values the slider can return? If the slider isn't changing have them right click on the watcher and change the port. Ask what values the button press can return? Show http://www.dotdiva.org/profiles/yolian.html and talk about how sensors are used in lots of places like helping to create better weather models by adding more sensors in the ocean, and measuring the vital signs of soldiers.
30 min. - Do the musical pickles and explain what the resistance sensors are measuring. Give each team two pieces of pickle on the wax paper and a wooden dowel and two paper clips. Show the students how to assemble the pickle and program it. Also show them how to execute the script by clicking the green flag.
30 min - Do the reaction game and start with when they hear a sound, then see the cat move, and then create their own "button" using aluminum foil. Ask what the fastest time that anyone got was. Ask what was the resistance of wood, cloth, metal, and skin. Show them how to program the first script.
30 min - try to use the PicoBoard as a controller for a game. You can add it to the Pong example game (under examples and games when you open a project) and add a score to the game and a way to tell if you won or lost. See http://ice-web.cc.gatech.edu/dl/?q=node/624. Ask the students to figure out how to set the x to -240 to 240 when the slider returns 0 to 100 (the answer is to set the x to (slider times 4.8) minus 240.
45 min - let the students try to create their own game in Scratch using the PicoBoard as a controller.
15 min. - Post Workshop Survey and Cleanup. Use the bookmark to get to the post survey. Walk around to check that they are actually doing the post survey. Gather up the nametags with the survey codes on them.
Be sure to do the post-surveys!
After each workshop
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