Major Updates

Fall 2020

Due to the safety regulations and social distancing at schools and for the safety of participants all in person extra curricular activities, specially the hands-on group based activities, are on hold. We are looking forward to when the pandemic is under control and we start working with the students again.

Spring 2020

COVID-19!

All schools moved to online instruction due to the Pandemic. I miss working with my kids 😦

last session before covid-19

Our last session in Spring 2020. Looking forward to meeting and having fun again when it's safe to do so. Stay Safe and Healthy!

Start of the New Year and new sessions with the students. After our sessions of designing, programming and trouble-shooting purpose built robots, we could use our knowledge to program Microbits with more sophistication. The students were introduced to various sensors built in on the circuit board and were shown ways to connect to motors and other sensors. A design board showing a “Smart City of the Future” was built for the students. The board had many elements using Microbits’ sensors as well as displaying Microbits’ interaction with motors, light and sound. The students worked on each element getting familiar with various aspects of the MicroBit. The Smart City display helpes showcase the strength and versatility of the Microbit and will hopefully inspire the students to take their projects to the next level.

Spring 2020 group — New Year and new sessions with the MicroBit

Smart board 1 — Excited to explore the different elements of the *Smart City* Board

Smart Board 2 — Oh Wow! MicroBits and Robots Galore!

smart board 3 — Look, it turns on when it’s dark and shuts off when it senses light

smart board 4 — This song gets my attention. It should help enhance pedestrian safety.

Learning to code for sound

The students had fun learning to code different notes and then trying to make their own rhythms. It was a novel experience for them to play with music and try to mesh pleasing notes together.

Working with the Light Sensor

We first worked with the light sensor. The students learned to build a circuit with LEDs then coded the Microbit to turn the LEDs on and off based on its built in sensor input.

jan 16 group — Busy learning about light sensors

I did it!

The light turns on

This is exciting

Pressing the button to light up the LED

spring 2020 group with teacher — With our teacher Ms. Hira

GESS announcement — GESS shortlisted me as one of the finalists. I was humbled to be selected and honored to be part of a group of educators who are excited about STEAM.

Fall 2019

We were all ready for an exciting start to a new year. More students had joined in making it more fun for everyone. For this semester, we brought in Lego NXT robots. The students could program the robots and learn to design and build robots as per the challenge given to them. It was a good way to teach the students the value of perseverance and the methodology of creative problem solving. The entire Fall semester was spent on working with the NXT robots. The final competition was held during the last two sessions in December.

Group December 2019 — New year, more students, more fun.

Nooraysha helping troubleshoot — Teaching the art of troubleshooting

robot misbehaving — Testing, troubleshooting, testing

MVIMG_20190926_125652 — Becoming familiar with the different pieces and their functions

The boys cleaning out the boxes

Getting familiar with the pieces

Sample robots — The designs created were amazing

Spring 2019

By January 2019 the girls were very comfortable working with the Microbits. They wanted to showcase the work they did in the Code Cubed sessions to the entire school. Hence for our 2019 spring semester project they all wanted to make projects for the science fair.