Maker Artifacts

ACTIVITY: Create an animal that is adapted for the described environment

Potato Head Environment: Spudbank Ridge 

Project Goal: Build an animal that is suited to the environment described with the materials provided. 

Spudbank Ridge is in the far north and is covered in snow and ice for seven months of the year. Like most northern environments, the days are short and the nights long and dark! Luckily, a large group of miniature dogs call the ridge home and are the constant companions of other residents. The Potato Heads are particularly good at riding them and so can travel great distances to search for food. But the dogs move fast, and you have to have strong arms and a good grip to hold on!  Hypothermia is a constant threat, and spuds are particularly susceptible to losing heat through their heads. Due to a lack of sunlight, Vitamin D deficiency is also a danger. Lighter pigment helps with Vitamin D absorption, but when the sun does shine this makes creatures less able to see and avoid danger due to the glare off the ice. Gravy flows (warm and nutritious) are present deep under the ice. To reach a drilling place, a creature must be sure-footed. Once the gravy is reached, a mouth capable of collecting and holding large amounts of liquid is desirable.                   

ACTIVITY: Design a desktop golf/game out of cardboard

Desktop Minature Golf/Game Challenge

Project Goal: Your design team will create the most interesting, colorful and challenging (but still possible to play) miniature golf hole that you can.  This will become part of a classroom miniature golf course that we will all get to play, once finished. 

Project Requirements: Your hole must:

• Include at least 2 levels

• Include a functional electric circuit

• Be colorful

• Be challenging but not impossible to play

• Include a reasonable par or scoring systems=

• Have a theme

• Size: One or two cardboard box bases, no larger

A constructional plan with rough sketches and a proposed materials list. You must review this with the planning department (in this case, your teacher) before you may begin construction.

ACTIVITY: Make a Scribble Bot that moves around the table

Scribble Bot Instructions

Project Goal: Each team will build a scribble bot using the materials provided.  A successful scribble bot will move independently with all components on the bot and create a drawing on the paper. 

Project Requirements: 

• Sketch your plans for your robot

• Test, analyze, make modifications, retest

• Use at least three colors

• All of the components must be in or on the cup

• Try the motor with the glue stick in different positions (pre-drilled holes allow for attaching from different points)

• Make your scribble bot move in different ways - straight, in circles

• Make your scribble bot creat different kinds of writing

Rube Goldberg Style Marble Run

Project Goal:  Make a marble run that goes as fast as possible without the marbles coming off of the tracks.  Experiment with slowing the ball down.

Project Requirements: Work with a team to build and modify the marble run. Using the resources at hand can you control the speed of the marble.  See how fast you can successfully get the marble down the run without having the ball fall off. 

3D Printed Cookie Cutters

Project Goal:  Learn/Use TinkerCAD to design and 3D print a cookie cutter. 

Project Requirements: 

• Have students bring their laptops already set up with TinkerCAD accounts.

• Walk through basic TinkerCAD functionality needed to design. These TinkerCAD tutorials  are short and can be done self-paced or followed as a class. 

• Follow teacher through steps to create a basic cookie cutter: (1) Place a TInkerCAD heart,  (2) copy the heart, (3) shrink the second heart by a 5mm and make it a hole,  (4) align the two hearts, (5) group them so the hole is cut out of the original heart.

• Sketch design ideas for their own cookie cutter, thinking about what kinds of designs work for this project. A flat simple shape works best.  Trying to add holes inside the cookie cutter or utilizing 3D images designed to stand upright make it more complicated.  They can also figure this out through trial and error.

• Work independently to create their design in TinkerCAD. Work with classmates, utilize instructor, revisit tutorials as needed. 

• Export design so it can be sliced (teacher computer) and converted to a 3D printable file.

• Print Design. How did it come out? What should be changed? 

• Retinker the design to improve functionality then reprint.