Passed out children: Mindstorm using scratch3

~Saranya

2018 and 2019 passed out children 4 of them (Ajay, Rathnavelu, Sathish and Kbilan) came to learn something new in STEM land. They saw that we were working on scratch 3 using mindstorm so they also want to learn scratch 3 using mindstorm. They learned the mindstorm at STEM land also they already familiar with mindstorm.  But they didn’t know how control the robot by using scratch 3.

Scratch 3 is a newer version of scratch. It has some new features. Which is controlling Arduino, Mindstorm and translator. They built hand and leg using mindstorm. They connected the mindstorm and scratch 3 through Bluetooth.  Children did coding in scratch 3 and they have control the robot. It was wonderful that children were utilising there time in learning. Even though they graduate to other schools they were able to retain what they have learned in STEM land.

Support A Child – Reflections

The Support A Child program for Isai Ambalam School started in August 2018 which is supported by Asha for Education, Bangalore. We started the program for support for 68 children of phase one (children from 3rd grade to 8th grade). Once all the students got supported we started the second phase of children 60 (children from creche to 2nd grade). With the kind support of 69 donors we got support for all the children in Isai Ambalam School.

We attended a course on WordPress and learnt how to build websites and pages. We built the SAC page in Asha for Education, Bangalore. Saranya, Sanjeev and I worked on it. From the learning of the course some of them was easier to do but some of the other things like automating the donation and tracking the supported/Not supported child was difficult for us. We learnt many features in website building like FAQs, Menu, Header images, Body texts, Buttons, Form Submit, Auto response when the form is submitted and so on. We got the website ready and launched the program in Isai Ambalam School.

After launching the program we created accountabilities. There were many tasks involved in this whole process. We had to communicate with the donors, check/track the donations, collect receipts, communicating with teachers in Isai Ambalam, send student information,etc. Saranya and I have accounatbilities  separately and work on it together.

-Reflections from Logeshwari

What I did well?

I made the SignUp form in WordPress and learnt how to send auto response when the form is submitted. Collaborated with Saranya and making the whole web pages in WordPress and running the program along with her. Sharing what I learnt when doing the website pages to her. Created the Google Sheets in which the colour changes of students not supported to red and supported children to green when we no and yes respectively.

What went well?

The kind support of all the donors. Some donors picking more than one child. This is the first time I’m running a SAC program and handling financial details.

What will I do differently?

To communicate with the respective people who all are involved and reduce the gap in between. To set up deadlines for the tasks and work on them.

-Reflection from Saranya

What did I do well?

This is the first time I am running Support a child programme. I learnt how to use contact form, change font size and header images along with Logeshwari. I worked on the web page (uploading google xlsx into the page, . We planned and worked together. We learnt to know each other skills and we splitted up the  task. I learnt to use filter in google sheet. During this period I learnt a lot. It help me to reflect myself.

What went well?

-Sign up page, Aautomation (filtering the child ) and we expected one donor choose one child but some donor picked more that 4.

-Responding to the donor.

-Sending update to the donor.

Where to improve?

Send newsletter on time.

STEM land team switching to e-cycles

~Murali

All the members of STEM land have switched to eco-friendly mode of transportation for their daily transport. We always cared about our physical health and environment as well, So we decided to try the KINISI electric cycles. Now we have rented 11 electric cycles and are using it effectively for about 1 month for our daily tranport. We got positive feedbacks from the entire team . Hopefully, we will be using these for longer duration.

This initiative from us is appreciated by many and is making awareness to others. We strongly recommend everyone to use e-cycles instead of motorbikes  for a good cause(to keep the surroundings pollution-free and to keep yourself physically fit).

 

Arduino course in i-SMART classroom

-Poovizhi and Saranya

Vimal has completed B.E Mechanical Engineering and has experience in various profiles as execultive operations, Engineering maintenance, deputy manager- management systems, quality control in a glass container company 12 years. Presently with Redshade Robotics as a mentor cum trainer for embedded systems and robotics using Arduino for 2 years. He offered an Arduino robotics course for STEM land facilitators.

Siva from Isaiambalam school also joined us for the course. We started from the history of Arduino and moved on to digital input, analog input,send and receive from PC , drive AC and DC motors, Line follower using infrared sensor, solve boot loader issue and to create library to make programming easy for children to use Arduino. We also learned to snap4Arduino. He created a desktop version of Scratch3 and introduced it to us.

Finch: using distance sensor

-Arun, Abilash

Abilash and I were testing the distance sensors in Finch Robot, which lead us to do a simple project where the Finch has to go through a track we made.

Learning Scratch programming (Gujarat Team )

~Saranya and Murali

(They refer to Gujarat team) Rahul  and his team from Gujarat came to visit Udavi STEMland and Isai Ambalam school STEM land. They were 4 of them and they run residential school at gujarat. They take mathematics and science for their children. They want to observe the classes (@STEm land) how we teach at STEM land. They were very surprised that we don’t teach in STEM land. They came to know about us through internet. Suddenly they planned to visit. They came only to visit STEM land ( March 28th ) . They also stayed with Isai Ambalam children for their sleep over. They wanted to observe the classes and activities. During sleep overs children go for their drumming circle they were curious to go with children and they want to learn drumming.

 

 

 

 

 

In Udavi children presented their projects and children shared their experience with them. They wanted to learn about scratch. I and Murli took scratch course for them with help of my team. We started with basic and Rahu tried his best and he helped his team to familiar with scratch. The did their best and they are continuing relationship with us. We are organizing robotics course and programming4matheducatorrs workshop for in and around Auroville youngster and mathematics teacher.  Rahul is signed up to attend P4ME workshop.

Volunteer learning Mindstorm from children

~Saranya
Visitor from Pondicherry. He has an experience in robotics by using Arduino. He wants to learn mindstorm so he visited STEM land. In our STEM land there is no hierarchy. If children knows which I don’t know I can learn from children also. That what happened at STEM land. He actually learnt from children only. He already knew how the mindstorm works but he didn’t do it by practically. He started coming to STEM land then he worked with our children and he learnt mindstorm. Now he is offering course on robotics. Here I am able to see sharing knowledge each other. Whateer we learnt we shared with him now, he is going to share about robotics.

 

 

Visit to Vedandhangal

-Arun

Children of Isaiambalam school have been studying about birds for some days. The 4th grade children were learning about local birds and their habitats. They were also interested in learning about beaks and legs of different birds and why they are different. We gave them access to computers, books and bird cards to learn and research. We also showed them documentary on Humming birds. They were fascinated to see humming birds being so swift in flight. Since they have learnt about flowers in the past children also picked up the fact that humming birds and flowers are interdependent on each other. Children cut out shapes of birds and hung them in strings to make them fly. Some of them were very happy to draw birds and colour them.

We also decided to take the children to Vedanthangal to visit some of the migrating birds.

Reducing fraction to its lowest form

The following scratch program asks and reduces a random fraction generated to its lowest form. The code uses mod function to check and evaluate if the numerator and denominator can be divided without any remainders by a certain given number by the user. At the same time a pictorial representation of the fraction is drawn so as to see all the reduced parts are equivalent and look the same.