There was a lot of
wonder and excitement as Room 1 students entered ‘The Mind Lab’. Straight away
they noticed all the tech equipment and digital devices and were immediately in
awe of the place. There were three workshops each classroom attended and they
were robotics programing, computer coding and animation.
Robotics programming with Carl (Oldie)
Whizz! The robotic
cars zoomed through legs and around feet as the Room 1 children controlled them
with the remote. The objective of the learning with Oldie was to create a
program that would allow the robotic car to function and move from left to
right and back and forward. This task proved challenging for some but all the children
got there in the end. It took a lot of patience, trial and error especially
when programming the car to turn right and left. In order for the car to turn
right, the right motor had to be switched off to let the left motor do the
work, and for the car to turn left they had to shut down the left motor and let
the right motor power the turn. Once the programming had been worked out, the
children then uploaded it to the robotic car’s memory allowing it to move. Room
1 worked collaboratively in pairs and had a blast with the robotic cars.
Computer Coding with Andy
The children were
creating their own 2D Games using an online software program called ‘Scratch’.
They accessed ‘Scratch’ via Google Chrome and were able to choose their own
characters for their game, use blocks to create codes that would allow their
characters to move left, right, up, down and many other ways you can think of.
The children could also add in their own backgrounds, draw in mazes, traps,
bridges and other fun and wacky ideas they had for their game. I know
the children will definitely look more into the 'Scratch programme at home.
Animation with Tim
Animation, what is
it you say? Animation starts with still images/pictures and puts them together
to form the illusion of continuous motion. A cartoon is an example of animation
(Note the difference with a video. A video takes continuous motion and breaks
it up into discrete frames).
Room 1 were
ecstatic with animation, creating a story using equipment like wrestling toys,
animals, cars, and playdough, and capturing the movements with a webcam.
Working in four groups they started at an animation station (each station had a
different theme) then rotated around to the next, adding onto the previous
recorded animation from the group before. They had 10 minutes to discuss as a
group what their story line was and went for it. What I enjoyed seeing was not
only the final video but also the children working together, each sharing their
ideas and doing their part to help create funny and interesting videos.
Room 1 tamariki
learnt that in order for the video to play out smoothly, movement of the
characters/equipment in their stories had to be very minimal in each shot,
otherwise it looked like the character/equipment was teleporting everywhere in
the video. They also learnt that it takes 24 photos (still images) to make one
second of footage, which was an eye opener for some. Just imagine how many
still shots are needed for a two-hour cartoon! It took a lot of practice and
focus on moving the characters a tiny fraction at a time and capturing the
moment. The children created some wonderful short videos and had a lot of fun
with animation!
Our trip to ‘The
Mind Lab’ was an experience the children will never forget and it also got them
excited for our inquiry learning this term, ‘How does the big wide world work?’
A huge thank you to all staff at ‘The Mind Lab’ who stimulated the young minds of our
tamariki with all the fun activities that were prepared. Also thank you to our
parent helpers that joined us on our educational trip and learnt alongside our
tamariki. What an amazing way to spend the first day of Term 2!!
THE TAMARIKI BEING INTRODUCED TO THE MIND LAB
ROBOTIC
PROGRAMMING
COMPUTER CODING
THEIR 2D GAMES
ANIMATION TIME
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