Children Learn Circuitry, 3D Printing and Photography in Summer Program

Students in one of the classes at the Ossining School District’s Summer Innovation Academy set aside their mouses and keyboards and attached “Makey Makey” circuit board kit wires to globs of Play-Doh and aluminum foil pieces. They tapped on their jury-rigged left, right, up and down “arrows” to play games like “Fireboy and Water Girl” and Nickelodeon’s “Racing Stars.”

Nine-year-old Anthony Jiang chose the “Mario Dance” game, which was a little more complicated. He asked teacher Peter Miller for help during a class July 19. Mr. Miller cut some panels from a cardboard box, drew an arrow on each piece and sat on the floor with Anthony as they taped everything together. They put brown pieces of Play-Doh in a hole cut into the middle of each arrow and attached Makey Makey kit wires.

“Anthony, this thing is really cool, do you know that?” Mr. Miller said. “Do you think it’s going to work?”

It did. Anthony took off his blue rubber clogs and gently tapped his feet on the arrows to play the game. “It’s really fun and it’s good for exercising,” he said.

The class was one of several offered for two weeks in July to students entering grades 3 through 8. The youngest students took the Makey Makey class and created e-textile projects using basic circuitry and LEDs. Children entering grades 5 and 6 used “littleBits” circuit boards and learned basic programming in an introduction to robotics. The oldest students spent one week learning about digital photography and the next in a class on 3D printing and engineering design.

The school district received several hundred applications for about 50 spots in the Summer Innovation Academy, which was held at Anne M. Dorner Middle School. The goals of the program were to develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and to encourage creativity and innovation.

“One parent said her daughter loves the program and would like it to go on all summer,” said Kelly Douai, coordinator of instructional technology for the district.

In the littleBits class, Lucy Bolger, 9; Sofia Merladett, 11; and Haley McIntyre, 9, used more than 100 Popsicle sticks, a few glue guns and clay to build a model of a solar system. The littleBits circuit board they placed at the top powered a Popsicle stick carousel with clay planets attached to it.

Some of the other projects in the class were a Popsicle model of a school, the Tappan Zee Bridge, a car and a house, using littleBits to power moving or blinking parts.

The previous week, Lucy, Sofia and Haley took a robotics class. “We got to program a robot. It was really fun,” Lucy said.

In another class, the oldest students chose a picture from Google Images, put it into Google Drawings, then into Tinkercad computer-aided design software to create 3D designs. One student printed out a tiny gray dragon that is a cell phone holder and a key chain. Other 3D creations were an elephant, a puppy and a cheetah. Another student, 12-year-old Savannah McIntyre, made a cell phone case with “SWIM” written on the back.

“I’m on the swim team,” she said. “I really enjoy swimming.”

Nine-year-old Alex Lenaghan, who was playing “Racing Stars” in the Makey Makey class, said his favorite part of the Innovation Academy was playing video games in school and “learning how to make controllers.”

“I’m lucky to be in this program,” he said.