My group and I created a protocol based on the approached learned in Equity Lab to support users with disabilities: specifically visual and motor impairments.
The protocol allowed users to play a matching game, the sender represented a visually impared individual so the microbit was coded through python to speak the letters outloud. The reciever then had a large "game controller" to scroll through the letters by presseing the coded pieces (A, B, and AB).
We created beautiful living paintings with colorful bacteria. As a marine biologist I decided to paint colorful fish ~swimming~ in the petridish.
Before tinkering I had no idea you could create art inside of bacterial plates. I really enjoyed this activity being that I have no background in this type of labrotary material or microbiology as a whole. This could definitely open students eyes to laboratory materials, how to handle them, and cross contamination.
While learning about Lego robotics we were challenged to build a robot from scratch! We works on two challenges within two class periods.
For the first challenge we needed to create a robot that would drive in a straight line and stop at the end of the "runway". My group was very excited about creating the robot, we spent most of the class time putting our robot together and attaching color sensors so it would know to start moving when it sensed green and stop when it sensed red. We had fun tinkering, adding different pieces to make sure it would be stable and move in a stright line. Unfortunately we spent most of our time creating the robot, that we were unable to finish the code.
For the second challenge we needed to code for a robot that would stay within a battle field and fight to be the last robot standing. We were given a prebuilt robot, we just needed to add sensors and pieces to the front an back to allow it to "battle". We called our robot the battling ram. We decided to go with the color sensor again so when the robot sensed black it would turn around and stay inside the battle field. We tinkered with the code for a while, we were able to get the robot to start and sense the black line to keep it within the battle field but we were unable to come up with a code for it to turn around and continue the battling the other bots.
I really enjoyed this lesson, I liked how versitile the lego robot was and was intriged to continue playing with the other senors available.
When I first heard we would be sculpting with mycelium my first thought was "The Last of Us"! The time frame surrounding this project could not have been any better right in the middle of the season- where I had already learned so much about fungus!
The activity was alot of fun, it was interesting learning how to break down the mycelium then add flour and water to then be able to create our own sculptures. Before this class I had no idea mycelium was used in such versitile ways (building blocks, fashion, headphones, sneaker, etc.). For my sculpture I molded hard foil into a heart shape, stuffed it with the mixture, and covered it in tin foil and plastic. Unofrtunately I had just moved after bringing my sculpture home. I left it in a dark empty cabinet... for WAY too long. By the time I opened the cabinet to start reorganizing my kitchen appliances I found my container filled with mold and had to throw it away. So unfortunately was unable to bake it. However, I would love to be able to incorporate sculpting with mycelium into my furture science classes.