Participants will build a circuit to control an LED with a simple button. The power source will be a computer. This is made possible by using something called an Arduino. This lesson will introduce participants to the basics of circuitry with Arduinos. The students will practice abstraction in the identity activity and decomposition in the Arduino activity.

Activity

“My Fullest Name” Source: Critical Multicultural Pavilion External link

Objective

The following activity is particularly useful when working with participants who don’t know one another very well. The goal of this activity is to warm up participants to sharing about themselves and start revealing a bit about each participant’s background.

Materials

Markers and 8-by-10-inch sheets of paper folded horizontally.

Instructions

On the back of the piece of paper write the top three identities you feel closest to. The facilitator encourages participants to go around the circle to share any meanings, significance, culture, significant ancestors and the top three identities they hold dearest. Everyone will have a chance to share and be heard by the group.

Suggested questions if participants need help getting started:

• Who gave you your name? Why that name?

• Do you know the ethnic origin of your name?

• Do you have any nicknames? If so, how did you get them?

• What is your preferred name?

Facilitators should encourage students to be creative. Make it clear that it is acceptable to write poetry, list adjectives that describe them, include humor, etc.

If your group is large, break into diverse small groups of three to five to make sure everyone has an opportunity to share her or his story. Ask for volunteers to get the group started and tell participants they can share their stories from memory, or read them.

Facilitator Notes

• Some individuals will include personal information in their stories and may be reticent to read them. Sometimes it is most effective for facilitators to share their stories first — making yourself vulnerable will make others more comfortable doing the same.

• Allow time for every participant to share (whether it be with the whole group or with their small group).

Discussion

• When everyone has shared, ask participants how it felt to share their stories. What did you learn?

• Ask students if they can identify similarities and/or differences in how they were named?

• Are there other identities that are part of your name?

Before this activity ensure that "Setting up Arduino" tutorial has been completed with the students. Make sure the background on Arduino found from the set up tutorial has been explained to the participants.

This activity will apply the knowledge about basic circuits, covered in previous units, to an Arduino.

Directions

These directions are a little less direct. They give freedom to choose where some things go instead of explicitly saying which row and column to place things.

**To ensure the easiest understanding it would be helpful to print off these steps for each student to follow along with. The pictures are also helpful if there is confusion, but students should try to follow the steps without the pictures. Following the steps challenges students to think computatinally, while only following the pictures won't challenge students to think for themselves. Perhaps provide copies of the steps to each student, and only allow students to see the picture for that step if they are stuck.

On the other hand, step 7 would be most helpful if shown with the picture. The Online Arduino code website can be confusing, and itsn't part of the physical circuit. For this reason, providing the picture for step 7 might prevent too much confusion.

In addition, the visual representation of circuit (show above), can be displayed during this activity so students have some idea of what the circuit should look like. It provides a visual without being too direct. But if you think it is too obvious, you could chose to not show that picture either except for debugging purposes.

Gather participants and sit around in a circle. First participant (facilitator) who has the beach ball answers one of the questions for their reflection, then the participant tosses the ball to someone across from them in the circle and then that person answers a question. Repeat until everyone has answered.

1. What is a new thing you learned about someone today?

2. Explain a new thing you learned today.

3. What kind of other things do you think you can do with an arduino?

4. What did you find most interesting about the arduino?

5. How would you describe what you did in Compugirls today to someone outside of Compugirls?