Children Presentation – Udavi – STEMland

DSC_0035 DSC_0037 Sanjeev came up with the idea of letting the 9th grade children present what they learned so far over a month to the rest of the class. As in some days we have combined classes with the 7th and 8th graders, they also get exposure to the presentations.

Everyday, different chapters are presented to everyone. We started with the chapter ‘Sets Theory’. The ‘Sets Theory’ group started the presentation with a game. I thought it went quite well and the younger children were also into it. The other days there were no games presented and I thought only the 9th graders got what was presented.

In the coming weeks the children have been told to do 4 things differently than what they did before. Lets see what happens.

DSC_0039

Mandala’s

This scratch project was created by Barani (7th std student) from Udavi School, Auroville.

Barani had started this project to get a feel of scratch. This was one project which was not about animated characters playing a role in a story. Next he tool up an even interesting subject from his learning this term, i.e Practical geometry. He wanted to show how angle bisectors were drawn for a given angle.

 

 

STEM land Annual Report 2015 – 2016

STEM LAND

The vision behind the STEM is learning based on concepts, practical observation & abstraction with the help of teaching kits & technology. In short “Mediocrity to Excellence. It empowers students to use their creativity to solve problems, ask questions and continually learn. The children have boiled down learning rules at STEM Land as – learn something new, learn something old, learn something now. This translates to.

  • Old – Fill up the concept gaps in the math which haven’t learnt in last term or year or before.
  • Now – Learn concepts or idea which supposed to learn in this term.
  • New – Learn something new. It may be curricular or extracurricular.

Activities in STEM land:

We team of six teachers (Sanjeev, Bala, Naveen, Sundaraman and Vaidegi, Ranjini) all Electrical Engineers work with children from 6th – 9th grades. We have started teaching mathematics with the programming tools called Scratch & Geogebra.

Scratch & Geogebra:

We have started teaching the mathematics with the programming tools called Scratch & Geogebra. In Scratch, Students have coded many programs which demonstrate the mathematics concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, circle, triangle, fraction, percentage, Pythagoras theorem, square & square root, cube & cube root & algebra. In Geogebra circle, triangle, cone, fraction, percentage, data handling & Pythagoras theorem. Since they had coded the same concept in different tools they got the granularity and became capable of connecting it with many things in real life.

Measurement Equipment:

They had used distance meter to measure the distance to get the sense of meter(m)& kilometer(km), Heart rate monitor to understand the functioning of heart, using temperature monitor they have learnt difference between Celsius & Kelvin, Speed gun and so on.

Montessori & Jodo Gyan Materials:

These materials used to demonstrate the Division, Fraction, Degree, square & cube also gives a sense of numbers (Integers, decimal).

Assessments:

Assessments are conducted every week for the students to notice their own growth (where they can discuss the answer without copy).

Mind storm:

Children had learnt a lot with these     Mind storm robots. Nearly they had built 4 different kinds of robots (also programed it) and one is in progress.

Electronics:

Almost all the children of 7th, 8th and 50% of 9th and 6th know how to solder. They have built power supply, Battery model with lemon and water, Seven segment display of STEM land using battery power (and later the battery has replaced with solar panel by students) ,Generators & solder more than 50 soldering kits like kitchen timer, claping circuit,  FM receiver and so on. Few of them know how to use resistor & capacitors.

Hardware Programming:

Some of the students from 8th grade knows how to program Arduino, makey makey and Aravind’s kupta toys. A student worked in Solar panel and made seven segment display to display the STEM land name. Around 25 students are able to do soldering and have built some Electronics & Electrical circuits (example Kitchen timer, Clapping circuits, FM transmitter and so on)

One student from 7th grade has built a power supply which gives 9V, 8V, 6V and 5V volts as output. A group of students from 9th grade made power bank to charge the mobile phone.

Software Programming:

Alice & blender are 3D programming. Students have created many 3D videos using Alice. Some of them narrated their own stories too. A student used Alice to demonstrate the (a+b)^3 formula. Blender tool used to create a 3D image for 3D printer.

Games & Puzzles:

STEM land challenges the students in every aspects of their learning (whether it is related to their curricular or extracurricular activities or games & puzzles). Game and puzzles helps them to see patterns. More than 15 students can solve rubik’s cube and 6 can solve within a minute.

Collaboration:

Stem land is the place for collaboration. Students from different school (Isai Ambalam, TLC, Government school of Edaiyanchavadi) come and work together and learn from each other.

Articles on STEMLAND:

There  are two articles on STEMLAND from ‘The Hindu’ and ‘Auroville Today’.

Output:

The outputs of the STEM land are,

  • It creates a place to learn many things from many areas.
  • Also it set up the place where people learning from each other regardless of age.
  • It makes people (children or adult) responsible for their.

Outcomes:

  • Continual learning.
  • Self-directed learning

Matplotlib Animation – calling animation from a function

Creating Animation in Matplotlib:
#——————————————————————————
# ANIMATION- DYNAMIC PLOTS
#——————————————————————————
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation
from matplotlib.figure import Figure
import time
def animated_plot():
def data_gen(t=0):
“””
Generator – generating data to plot the graph
“””
cnt = 0
while cnt < 1000:
cnt += 1
t += 1
a = time.localtime() # used to get seconds
yield t, a.tm_sec  # this ‘yield’ will generate two point continuously.
def init():
“””
Initiation – create the base frame upon which the animation takes place.
“””
ax1.set_ylim(0,60)
ax1.set_xlim(0, 10)
del xdata1[:]  # to clear
del ydata1[:] # to clear
line1.set_data(xdata1, ydata1)
return line1,
def run1(data):
“””
To run the animation(draw function)
“””
t1, y1 = data
xdata1.append(t1)
ydata1.append(y1)
xmin, xmax = ax1.get_xlim()
if t1 >= xmax:
ax1.set_xlim(xmin, 2*xmax)
ax1.figure.canvas.draw()
line1.set_data(xdata1, ydata1)
return line1,
fig = plt.figure(figsize =(4,1.5))
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1) #  1×2 mmatrix, 1st subplot
ax1.tick_params(axis=’both’, which=’major’, labelsize=8)
line1, = ax1.plot([], [], lw=2)
ax1.grid()
fig.patch.set_facecolor(‘white’)
xdata1, ydata1 = [], []
animatn = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, run, data_gen, blit=False, interval=1000,repeat=False, init_func=init)
plt.show()
return animatn # must to put return when the animation is calling from a function
Animat=animated_plot() # calling the function. Here ‘Animat’ is must (it just a variable). Otherwise it will return null

Important points to note:

  • Use ‘return’ to return all the values to continue the animation (when you need to call it from a function). Otherwise animation will stop at its first iteration.
  • Call the function with name. ex. ‘Animat=animated_plot()’ not simply ‘animated_plot()’. In the latter case, all the values are collected as garbage values. So it won’t draw anything in the canvas.

 

Passing ‘Global Variable’ across the files in Python

Passing global variable – Attachment

I have encounter a situation where i need to pass a variable from one file to another file. This is like passing global variable across the files. I’ve created three files to demonstrate this as follows,

main.py   # name of the file
import subfile1
import subfile2
subfile1.globle_pas()
print(settings.x)
subfile2.change_glob_var()
print(settings.x)
subfile1.py     # name of the file
x = 0
def globle_pas():
global x
x = 1 # Default value of the ‘x’ configuration setting
subfile2.py     # name of the file
import settings
settings.globle_pas()
def change_glob_var():
settings.x = 9

Tooltip for Canvas items

Tooltip : Attachment 

Tooltip:
I am presently  creating a GUI in python. One of features is when I go on top of any button it should show the name of the button.  Tooltip can do this in python. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with images (My all buttons are made up of images) because it doesn’t consider image as widget. So I have come up with following method to create namebox.

******************************Tooltip for canvas Items ******************************

# Globals
tw = 0
tt_yes = 0
def tooltip_create(text, x,y): # inputs are text = display name; x,y = where should be positioned.
global tw, tt_yes
x -= 5
y += 15
# creates a toplevel window
tw = Toplevel(home_root)
# Leaves only the label and removes the app window
tw.wm_overrideredirect(True)
tw.wm_geometry(“+%d+%d” % (x, y))
label =Label(tw, text=text, justify=’left’,
background=’white’, relief=’solid’, borderwidth=1)
label.pack(ipadx=1)
tt_yes = 1
def tooltip_close(): # close the namebox window
global tw, tt_yes
if tt_yes:
tw.destroy()
def  hover_enter(event):
tooltip_create(“Save”, x,y)
return
def  hover_leave(event):
tooltip_close()
return
# Photoimage ( which requires the tooltip)
image=os.path.abspath(y+’images\\images2\\save.gif’)
img_save = PhotoImage(file = image)
canvas.create_image(x= X, y = Y,image=img_save,tags=”hover_functn”)
canvas.tag_bind(“hover_functn “,’<Any-Enter>‘, hover_enter)
canvas.tag_bind(“hover_functn “,’<Any-Leave>‘, hover_leave)

Rubik’s Cube – The viral in StemLand

We started to build the robot to solve rubik’s cube with python as platform in the STEM land. At that time Yuvaraj (8th grader) wanted to solve it. He searched for the algorithm to solve rubik’s cube. It took him 3 classes to solve the cube for the first time by following the steps. He was very happy and excited about his work and he showed it to other students also. Initially they were all looked at him as Genius and that moment made him to to solve the cube without looking at the algorithm after the continuous one week of hard work with passion. Suddenly, this made an impact in STEM land activities. Every child  wanted to learn it but the bad news was we had only one cube in the STEM at that time. So Sanjeev bought some cubes (bumb cubes, speed cubes and 4×4 cube) for STEM land through Asha grant. Almost all the students started to work on it. They helped each other to solve it regardless of grades. Presently there are 18 students who can solve rubik’s cube and few students can solve less than 2 minutes. For me its all about inspiration. None of us  asked Yuvaraj to solve it but he took the effort on seeing us building robot. No one asked other students to pick it up  but they picked it up on seeing Yuvaraj solving the cube. This is how STEM land works….  The following video was demonstrated by Rathinavelu.

Bangalore Days – My Internship on “Toys from Trash”

I went to Bangalore to do an internship on “Toys from Trash”(Aravind Gupta Toys). I did the Internship at SchoolGuru(located at Malleshwaram in Bangalore). Procheta was my practioner. The timing was from 10am-5pm.I did some 21 toys by watching the videos on youtube. After I finished each toy, Procheta and I we would discuss about the toy like how it will work and what principle it is based on,were it would be used and all. After a week Procheta,Vishal(another practioner)and I conducted a small workshop for the kids in Pura Fountain (Appartment in Marathalli,near Marathalli Bridge) . There were about 12-15 kids(age- 8 to 12 years old) , we conducted the workshop for three days. Each day we did some 5 toys. The kids really enjoyed making the toys and also enjoyed playing with it.

Then I went to Azhim Premji University(Electronic city,Inside PES College Campus) on 11th and 12th with my team (Vishal,Procheta and Me) were we attended a workshop conducted by Vikas Maniar on “Learning Maths from Trash Toys”. We made Counters, 2D blocks, Arrow Cards , Money Cards , Place Value Cards and Abacus and some more materials using waste cardboard sheets, small wood piece, nuts,cycle spoke and color paper to teach children(primary section) about numbers and addition, subtraction, division and multplication. How the children can find their own way in recognising the pattern and their own way of solving the problem was the main goal of our work.

On 13th Friday we conducted a workshop at Thermo Fisher Scientific(A company which helps Researcher in their research field) for 18 students(from 7th-10th Grade) from rural school and even some of the employees attended the workshop with their children. Then in the afternoon we went to NIAS(National Institute of Advanced Science which is situated inside IISC-Indian Institute of Science Campus) where Procheta and Vishal gave a small demonstration to the kids there and after we conducted a workshop for the kids to make the toys. The kids were so excited and they were asking lot of questions.

My Reflections:

I learned many things from making the toys,how to be organized when conducting workshops and how efficiently I am able to work. First, we would discuss what toys that we will do with the children in the workshops. Once, it is finalised we would take the materials and arrange the materials and take it to the place where we would have the workshop. Then we will first distribute the materials needed for the first toy and we w it will do the toy one step at a time. First, we will do it and the children would see it and then they will do it. Once, the toy is finished we all would discuss about the toy how it works and why it works. This is where the children starts thinking and asks question. After that they go and play with the toy. I would like to see going forward by taking session on how I conducted the Workshops with my team(Aura Auro Design) and teach the childrens in school. It was a nice experience that I had in Bangalore. I would like to use the experience that I got in my work space.