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Routing Ethernet Cables

The 9th grader at Udavi volunteered to paint the new Ismart class room that is being built in the factory side of the Udavi school campus. Which joins along with the Aura Auro Design Lab.

The new space required LAN connectivity.

The LAN cables where already routed to junction boxes which had to be clipped and fixed to the 24 model switch box.

(The box varies from brand to brand, Legrand is easy and takes less time to clip to the individual sockets but is ~ Rs 150 per unit that is 3x larger than other brands) The one that was used required more fine work of screwing and unscrewing individual wires of the CAT 6 LAN cables.

 

Vignesh connecting a socket box
Velmurugan connecting a socket box

 

 

We used straight connection for crimping the rj 45 connectors to the switch box

 

 

 

 

 

Then finally we tested if the wires were connected properly with a testing probe.

 

(The device had eight LED’s that would be connected to both ends of the cables. One of the device was the master and the other was a slave. The master would send a signal for each of the eight wires present on the CAT 6 cable and the slave would light up LED’s accordingly)

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Story of minus into minus is plus & programming for the same

Children from 8th were learning algebra and had difficulties with the sign operations. They were able to come up with stories of multiplying minus into plus, plus into minus and plus into plus but they couldn’t come up with a story of minus into minus. They asked the volunteers and facilitators to tell a story for it but they couldn’t get the right story for it. Sanjeev gave a story and explained how negative value multiplied with negative value becomes positive. Children even tried the story on the staircase. They closed their eyes and walked backward (negative) and facing down the staircase (negative) and when they opened their eyes they saw themselves climbed few steps up(Positive). They were excited and were able to implement it on their algebraic equations. They had fun while learning it.

Goanimate story:

Scratch program that randomly takes two numbers and does the same story.

link to scratch code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/296602417/

 

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Soldering and Tinkering

Children of Isaimbalam were very much interested in Soldering and making simple circuits. We got many Vega kits were the circuits are already printed in a PCB. Children study the datasheet of a particular circuit and solder. Children from 6th and 7th soldered few kits. They were very happy when some of them worked.

Since they are young and new they made mistakes by flipping few components here and then but they tinkered with my help.

Circuits like Disco light, Light sensor and water level indicator worked.

Bala was so happy when we were testing the water level indicator and the light one by one lighted up. Auyush also connected a buzzer to indicate low light.

Ayush and Swetha testing low light sensor
Ayush and Swetha testing low light sensor along with me
Sabari and Vasanth with Disco light
Sabari soldering the kit
Water level indicator by Bala
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Auro Orcharid – Gardening and Honey Bee’s

Naveen had planned a trip to Auro orchard with the isaiambalam school children. There were two groups. One were interested in the getting to know about the honey bees and the other on methods of bed techniques.

Uma Ramanan a member of the farm introduced us to Auro Orchard, the first farm designed to sustain Aurovilles people back in time.

The day started by looking at raised bed technique and types of vegetables that they have grown.

Children were able to seen how much the production had increased due to the raised beds. (On an avg a turmeric plan can only produce 300gm of product but here they were able to collect up to few Kg)

The Papayas they have are not hybrid varieties the seeds can be used to grow new saplings.

This flower has medicinal values (kills germs and is antibiotic in nature) and are loved by honey bees as they grow through out the year.

Then came the honey bees, Uma explained that the bees are farmers most important friend as they are the major pollinators, and they don’t use them to collect honey in the farm. but recently a bee hive had vacated the trunk as it had over grown its population and moved out. Hence they had to empty the wax.

 

Then the children had a group discussion on the the life cycle of bees.

And at last they were able to see the bee hives that were in the farm 🙂 .

 

The children had a wonderful time, and are eager for another visit to the farm.

 

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Pythagoras Theorem – Real Life Usage

I’m doing an EBD (Education By Design) with 7th and 6th graders. In order to understand the difficulty I showed them a building and asked them to draw an outline of it.

 

The building was polygonal in shape. They had a great time with that building and it had taught them a lot. For example – meter conversion, angles. At last them came up with its outline as shown in the figure.

 

Though it was small, it gave them some confidence and clarity on what they are trying to do.  We need to measure the length of a fence. But that was covered by plants,

 

On another day, we need to measure the length of a fence. But that was covered by plants, bushes and trees and it was not straight too. So it was little difficult to measure it. We had a discussion on how to go about it. I raised few questions every time they came up with some solutions to that situation. They realized every solution has its own drawback after analyzing it. So I thought that would be the perfect time to introduce the Pythagoras theorem for practical use.

I calculated the length of a tree without measuring it directly. They were amazed. They said that they want to know how I did it. I told them but it was little hard for them to understand as they didn’t know anything about square and square root.

 

I have used Dennis cubes to learn square, square root, cube and cube root. After that, I have used a simple and fast method the find out the square root. Children felt it was like a game and that went well too. using the Pythagoras theorem they measured that place height and base. With that, it was easy for them to find out the fence length.

 

 

 

 

They have used both measuring tape and distance meter.

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Fixing the tube light in Isai Ambalam

In Isai Ambalam prayer hall two tube light were not working. One student asked how to fix it. Then all the student wanted to learn how to fix a tube light. So we started how current flows in a closed loop. Using the tester we showed how to check  the plug point. We wrote  the parts that are present  in a tube light connection. We explained the function of each part . Then they drew the circuit connection in their note book. Next we removed the tube light and started checking the circuit connection. We found that the choke in the tube light didn’t work. We replaced a new choke in the same frame and it worked. Then in our school library the tube light didn’t work.

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Scratch with Younger Graders of IsaiAmbalam

I was really concerned when I came to know that I’m going to work with 3rd graders on Scratch on every Saturday. Because this was not the grade and activity I had in the mind. They are the youngest grade we work with. I have no idea about their status on computer skills or familiarity.

Last week I took my first session. Literally, it was horrible. Last week I started my class with Cat movements ( Horizontal and vertical motions only ). But they couldn’t do it. I had to sit and help each child individually. The class was messy, Children were screaming/fighting and I was out of control. So I end my class around 12.00pm that day.

The reason why they couldn’t do was,

  1. They are not familiar with computer that much. They couldn’t handle the mouse and keyboard ( The only time they used computers for playing an addition game).
  2. Whatever I did that day did not attract/interest them. They were not caring for the thing they were asked to make.
  3. There was no goal.

Today, before I start my class (and after the circle time), I asked them to show their favorite addition game. They were really happy to show that game to me. I felt that must be easy to create it scratch. I asked them,”How about making our own games instead of playing with other’s creation. They all gave me a stare for a second and asked will it possible? That’s where I played my role today.

I asked them to arrange the chairs in front of the big monitor and sit. I started with how to use the mouse ( different kinds of mouse clicks, when to use what and how to drag and drop something). Before starting to code, I showed them how to select different sprite and backdrop. They chose a boy as the sprite and swimming pool as the backdrop. The boy has to ask the question. If the user enters a correct answer, he should say good else the boy has to jump into the water and die.

I started coding for their theme step by step. There was pin drop silent. Even the so-called trouble creators were into it and did not disturb the class :-). Once I complete the program, I let it be on the monitor so they can replicate it. They did.

I know that they only replicated the program not created. But they way they did it was amazing. Some of them had few doubts about shrinking the sprite and finding the backdrop. But none of them had doubts about where to get the commands ( I mean, from which block). They were focused and worked towards their wish. This time, I ended (forcefully ) my class at 12.45pm.

 

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Building a simple motor:

In Isai Ambalam school we showed Arvind gupta video for the  4th and 5th graders. They saw the video and noted down the materials that are needed to build a simple motor. First day they built and it didn’t rotate. They were sad and went back to their class. Second day they watched the video again and they came to know their mistake. They corrected their mistake and the it rotated. Siva and me explained the concept why it is rotating. From my experience when I built it for the first time it didn’t rotate and I didn’t know what was the mistake. Then It rotated. I learnt that I should never give up easily on what I work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Garden EBD

-Sundar and Arun

The children in Isaiambalam, had started an EBD on garden. There were already two two sets of steps(for creating beds, in order to plant) built using cement and bricks on the front side. The left side looked a little incomplete, The task was to complete a step on the left side of the structure. To do this the children had to dig out the excess soil to lay the first set of bricks.

To create the trench children had wired and made a straight line before digging. Before laying the bricks the leveling had to be checked, this was done using a tube level( a tube filled with water)

Then the cement was mixed to sand in a ratio of 1:3 along with required amount of water.

Brick work started.

Once the side steps where complete the children used the fraction kits to tell stories of proper fractions. Which they had used to while mixing cement of sand. They needed 7 pans of sand and 2 and 1/3 pans of cements.

Once the structure was complete the students had come up with values for the project. That were Respect, equality, and perseverance, and helping.

Then they started to estimate the build of materials and their cost. It started by calculating the number of bricks for 1m and expanding to number of meters they used it for. With this they started to tell multiplication and division stories.

 

 

 

 

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Tessellation kit:

In Isai Ambalam school the 5th graders were able to identify the different shapes using the tessellation kit. They learnt the names of shapes like triangle which has 3 sides. They also learnt pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon. By using the shapes they were making different structures like fish, flower and some mandala structure. I learnt some new shapes names like heptagon, decagon and nonagon. It was interesting for me that I learnt something with the children.

Pratap.G