Turns out Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus had it right all along! In the era of the Next Generation Science Standards, there is a great deal of evidence that experiential and project-based learning are effective approaches to education. As described in the Cambridge Handbook of Learning Sciences, project-based classrooms provide opportunities for students…
Whenever your phone rings or you get a text message, radio waves carry that information, whether in the form of a voice or letters, across vast distances. Different forms of wireless communication use different types of radio waves, which are differentiated by their wavelength and frequency. Cellphone radio waves can travel far, but eventually they…
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist, geologist, philosopher, and Jesuit priest, wrote: “The history of the living world is an elaboration of ever more perfect eyes in a cosmos in which there is always something new to be seen.” Humans have long sought answers to the mysteries of the natural world. Eventually, our curiosity helped…
Science allows us to ask our most pressing questions and explore all sorts of curiosities. With some thought, hard work, and patience, we can use our explorations to build a better understanding and appreciation of the complex and beautiful world around us. This tutorial will teach you how to use an Arduino (uno) microcontroller, how…
Now more than ever, folks like you and me have to step up and take a stand to protect and preserve our environment (and, quite honestly, our species). One great way to do that is to incorporate renewable energy technology into projects that use electricity. Even if the environmental aspect isn’t enough to get you…
Create, build, and play with your very own LEGO-inspired circuit blocks! Explore the basics of electricity and circuits, discover how sensors work and use ’em to design your own experiments, and incorporate upcycled materials to improve on your materials-sourcing & MacGuyver-ing skills! That old gum wrapper? Make it into a resistor or a switch! But…
Light-up cards incorporate two of the best worlds of making (electronics and crafts) with the added bonus of making somebody smile. Heck yes! Here’s my approach to light-up cards and my favorite recent discoveries: pop-ups and cotton balls. Read time: ~ 5 min. Build time: ~ 30 min -1 hr (mostly crafting the card) Cost:…
Checking your car battery life, debugging circuits, and finding that pesky short are all super useful functions that can be performed with just one awesome tool: the multimeter! First of all, what the heck is a multimeter?? Excellent setup question! It’s a handheld device with bunch of different electrical meters — hence, multi-meter! Measuring voltage,…
A survey questionnaire come to life! Use (nearly) any object to gather helpful data through an interactive, engaging, and fun multiple-choice survey. This project uses the Makey Makey microcontroller in combination with a Raspberry Pi computer to read in participants’ survey choices and save the results in a text file. Planning & Design! This…
Walking across large, metal pipes in search of urban adventure, my inner voice joked, “Hey, magnet shoes would be handy right about now.” Well, no arguing with that! Off to build my very own magnetic shoes! This tutorial gives an overview of my build process for a magnetic boot prototype in hopes of inspiring you…
