Over to you, Chris.

Every year, our students take federal or state-mandated testing, but what significant changes have we made to their education with the results of these tests? We have never collected more data about our students and society in general. The problem is most people and institutions do a poor job interpreting data and using it to make meaningful change. This problem was something I wanted to tackle in FH Grows.

FH Grows is the name of my seventh-grade class, and is a student-run agriculture business at Knollwood Middle School in Fair Haven, New Jersey. In FH Grows, we sell our produce both online and through our student-run farmers markets. Any produce we don’t sell is donated to our local soup kitchen. To get the most out of our school gardens, students have built sensors and monitors using 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pis. These sensors collect data which then allows me to help students learn to better interpret data themselves and turn it into action.

Turning data into action

In the greenhouse, our gardens, and alternative growing stations (hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics) we have sensors that log the temperature, humidity, and other important data points that we want to know about our garden. This data is then streamed in real time, online at FHGrows.com. When students come into the classroom, one of the first things we look at is the current, live data on the site and find out what is going on in our gardens. Over the course of the semester, students are taught about the ideal growing conditions of our garden. When looking at the data, if we see that the conditions in our gardens aren’t ideal, we get to work.

If we see that the greenhouse is too hot, over 85 degrees, students will go and open the greenhouse door. We check the temperature a little bit later, and if it’s still too hot, students will go turn on the fan. But how many fans do you turn on? After experimenting, we know that each fan lowers the greenhouse temperature between 7-10 degrees Fahrenheit. Opening the door and turning on both fans can bring a greenhouse than can push close to 100 degrees in late May or early June down to a manageable 80 degrees.

Turning data into action can allow for some creativity as well. Over-watering plants can be a real problem. We found that our plants were turning yellow because we were watering them every day when we didn’t need to. How could we solve this problem and become more efficient at watering? Students built a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi that used a moisture sensor to find out when a plant needed to be watered. We used a plant with the moisture sensor in the soil as our control plant. We figured that if we watered the control plant at the same time we watered all our other plants, when the control plant was dry (gave a negative moisture signal) the rest of the plants in the greenhouse would need to be watered as well.

This method of determining when to water our plants worked well. We rarely ever saw our plants turn yellow from overwatering. Here is where the creativity came in. Since we received a signal from the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi when the soil was not wet enough, we played around with what we could do with that signal. We displayed it on the dashboard along with our other data, but we also decided to make the signal send as an email from the plant. When I showed students how this worked, they decided to write the message from the plant in the first person. Every week or so, we received an email from Carl the Control Plant asking us to come out and water him!

If students don’t honour Carl’s request for water, use data to know when to cool our greenhouse, or had not done the fan experiments to see how much cooler they make the greenhouse, all our plants, like the basil we sell to the pizza places in town, would die. This is the beauty of combining data literacy with a school garden: failure to interpret data then act based on their interpretation has real consequences: our produce could die. When it takes 60-120 days to grow the average vegetable, the loss of plants is a significant event. We lose all the time and energy that went into growing those plants as well as lose all the revenue they would have brought in for us. Further, I love the urgency that combining data and the school garden creates because many students have learned the valuable life lesson that not making a decision is making a decision. If students freeze or do nothing when confronted with the data about the garden, that too has consequences.

Using data to spot trends and make predictions

The other major way we use data in FH Grows is to spot trends and make predictions. Different to using data to create the ideal growing conditions in our garden every day, the sensors that we use also provide a way for us to use information about the past to predict the future. FH Grows has about two years’ worth of weather data from our 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi weather station (there are guides online if you wish to build a weather station of your own). Using weather data year over year, we can start to determine important events like when it is best to plant our veggies in our garden.

For example, one of the most useful data points on the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi weather station is the ground temperature sensor. Last semester, we wanted to squeeze in a cool weather grow in our garden. This post-winter grow can be done between March and June if you time it right. Getting an extra growing cycle from our garden is incredibly valuable, not only to FH Grows as business (since we would be growing more produce to turn around and sell) but as a way to get an additional learning cycle out of the garden.

So, using two seasons’ worth of ground temperature data, we set out to predict when the ground in our garden would be cool enough to do this cool veggie grow. Students looked at the data we had from our weather station and compared it to different websites that predicted the last frost of the season in our area. We found that the ground right outside our door warmed up two weeks earlier than the more general prediction given by websites. With this information we were able to get a full cool crop grow at a time where our garden used to lay dormant.

We also used our 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi to help us predict whether or not it was going to rain over the weekend. Using a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi connected to Weather Underground and previous years’ data, if we believed it would not rain over the weekend we would water our gardens on Friday. If it looked like rain over the weekend, we let Mother Nature water our garden for us. Our prediction using the Pi and previous data was more accurate for our immediate area than compared to the more general weather reports you would get on the radio or an app, since those considered a much larger area when making their prediction.

It seems like we are going to be collecting even more data in the future, not less. It is important that we get our students comfortable working with data. The school garden supported by 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi’s amazing ability to collect data is a boon for any teacher who wants to help students learn how to interpret data and turn it into action.
 

Hello World issue 10

Issue 10 of Hello World magazine is out today, and it’s free. 100% free.

Click here to download the PDF right now. Right this second. If you want to be a love, click here to subscribe, again for free. Subscribers will receive an email when the latest issue is out, and we won’t use your details for anything nasty.

If you’re an educator in the UK, click here and you’ll receive the printed version of Hello World direct to your door. And, guess what? Yup, that’s free too!

What I’m trying to say here is that there is a group of hard-working, passionate educators who take the time to write incredible content for Hello World, for free, and you would be doing them (and us, and your students, kids and/or friends) a solid by reading it :)

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A 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi can be used to monitor the reaction between hydrochloric acid and sodium thiosulphate to complement a popular GCSE Chemistry practical.

The rate of reaction between hydrochloric acid and sodium thiosulphate is typically studied as part of GCSE Chemistry. The experiment involves measuring the time required for the reaction mixture to turn cloudy, due to the formation of sulphur as a precipitate. Students can then change the temperature or concentration of the reactants to study their effect on the rate of reaction. The time for the reaction mixture to turn cloudy is normally facilitated by recording the time a hand-drawn cross takes to become obscured when placed underneath a glass vessel holding the reaction mixture. This timing is prone to variability due to operator judgement of when the cross first becomes obscured. This variability can legitimately be discussed as part of the lesson. However, the element of operator judgement can be avoided using a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi-monitored chemical reactor.

The chemical reactor

Attached to a glass jar of approximate 80ml volume (the size is not critical) are two drinking straws, of which one houses a white LED (light-emitting diode) and the other a LDR (light-dependent resistor). The jar is covered in black tape to minimise intrusion of ambient light. The reactor is shown in Figure 1, along with details of other electrical components and connection instructions to a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi.

Figure 1
A: Reactor covered in black tape
B: Drinking straw attached to the reactor, with a further straw inserted housing a white LED
C: Drinking straw attached to the reactor, with a further straw inserted housing a LDR
D: 220Ω resistor to connect to the LED and GPIO 23
E: Wire to connect to ground
F: Wire to connect to 3.3v supply
G: 1µF capacitor to connect to ground
H: Crocodile clip to connect to GPIO 27 (NB: the other end of the wire is situated in between the capacitor and the LDR)

Results

The Python code shown in Figure 2 should be run prior to addition of chemicals to the reactor. Instructions appear on the screen to prompt chemical additions and to start data collection.

Figure 2: Python code for the chemical reactor

Figure 3 shows the results from the experiment when 25ml 0.1M hydrochloric acid is reacted with 25ml 0.15M sodium thiosulphate at 20°C. The reaction is complete at the time the light transmission first reads 0, (i.e. complete obscuration of the light by the precipitate formation) — in this example, that time is 45.4s. For more advanced students, tangents can be drawn at various points on the curve, and gradients calculated to determine the maximum rate of reaction from various reaction conditions.

Figure 3: Graph showing the change in light transmission with time

Download Hello World for free

Download your free copy of Hello World issue 7 today from the Hello World website, where you’ll also find all previous issues. And if you’re an educator in the UK, you’ll have the chance sign up to receive free hard copies to your door!

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In this blog post, Marcos shares how his 首页中文字幕中文字幕 at Picademy helped him successfully combine his skills as a teacher with an entrepreneurial drive.

At Picademy North America

The day before my flight to San Jose Airport to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, I was busy in my garage makerspace. It’s strange when and how inspiration strikes, but it did — at 1am while I was preparing for Picademy. While looking at the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi and all the coding languages, I began thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could hold the code in my hands and manipulate it?” So I began tinkering with the 3D printer and created a repeat block — and that’s how the story of Hands-On Coding begins.

The following day, I was part of the first cohort of 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi Certified Educators (RCEs) in America. I walked into a room full of innovative and creative teachers from all over the country. Over the next two days, we were introduced to the world of 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi and the coding basics we needed to create our first project. It was here that I understood the power of coding and how it is the language of the future. I truly believed then — and now! — how impactful coding could be if integrated into schools.

With so many talented people in attendance, I decided to share my 3D-printed coding blocks. After receiving many “oohs” and “aahs” from my peers along with several order requests, I realized that my idea could turn into something much bigger!

FAIL: First Attempt In Learning

One of the major takeaways from Picademy was Carrie Anne Philbin’s intro slide titled “FAIL: First Attempt In Learning.” But, for me, the word ‘fail’ turned into ‘fear’: being new to coding and the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi was daunting. Through persistence, though, I embraced growth, and worked my way out of those fears; I began to gain more confidence, which led to new ideas and 首页中文字幕中文字幕s. And I learned that changing my perspective on failure was the key to embracing it. Some time after Picademy, this same message was repeated to me by Reshma Suajani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, who saw my coding blocks and said: “Don’t let the fear of failure get in your way.” So I let failure drive me instead.

Hands-On Coding blocks

After Picademy, I met with Sam Patterson, another amazing RCE, at his local makerspace. During our conversation, I handed him one of my first coding block prototypes and asked for his thoughts. His words got me thinking about kinesthetic coding and the physical movements of acting out code to build understanding.

Two years later, in July 2018, after developing partnerships, distribution channels, and a fantastic shipping department (me), we delivered our first Hands-On Coding blocks! Hands-On Coding now consists of me and my partners Laura Fleming and Joann Presby, and our goal is to revolutionize coding by making it a more physical and tangible educational idea open to various types of learners. We hope to teach the fundamentals of computational thinking and computer science through the use of blocks and the absence of any technological device; you don’t need to learn coding in front of a screen. Our endgame is to help humanity learn to design solutions to problems in our world.

After Picademy

My 首页中文字幕中文字幕 at Picademy was just the start of my journey. I not only gained an understanding of the importance of coding in education and the versatility of the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi computer, but also grew out my shell and gained the confidence I needed to put ideas into actions. I became a TED Innovative Educator and an IDEO Teachers Guild Fellow, I launched Hands-on Coding, and I created numerous relationships and ambassadorships with an array of edtech companies. I understood that just because I am an educator or teacher that doesn’t mean I can’t follow my own dreams and aspirations and be a teacherpreneur! I do not have any secrets or magic to this process. Rather, a dream, action, and hard work can lead you to many worlds of possibilities.

Picademy and online training

Keep up to date with Picademy, including the release of 2019 dates, by following the #Picademy hashtag on Twitter. You’ll also find more information on our Picademy page.

Our free online training courses offer another way to learn about introducing coding into the classroom, and much more. And you can discover more stories and support from educators like Marcos in Hello World, the 新大地资源在线影视观看 and digital making magazine for educators, which is available for free.

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Put together your own remote-controlled Curiosity rover with the help of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi.

Why wouldn’t you want one of these?!

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

To educate the curious about the use of rovers in space, the Pasadena-based NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built a mini-rover, ROV-E, to tour classrooms, museums, and public engagement events.

The original ROV-E comes with a much higher price tag, so the JPL engineers decided to scale it down for home makers

And so engaged was the public by the rover and its ability to manoeuvre harsh terrain, rocks, and small children, that the JLP engineers have published a building plan that allows rover-enthused makers to build their own for around $2500 using off-the-shelf parts.

Curiosity for the curious

The JPL open-source rover is a scaled-down model of Curiosity, the car-sized rover currently on day 2187 of its mission to explore the surface of Mars.

The Mars rover sings Happy birthday to itself on 5 August every year, and this fact breaks out hearts!

And while the home-brew version of Curiosity may not be able to explore the Red Planet, project sponsor Tom Soderstrom believes it can offer plenty of opportunities to future STEM pioneers:

“We wanted to give back to the community and lower the barrier of entry by giving hands-on 首页中文字幕中文字幕 to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and programmers.”

A Pi at the heart of the rover

The rover uses a variety of tech makers may already have in their arsenal, including USB cameras and a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi. JPL’s design also gives you the option to swap out components with alternatives.

Control the rover however you please: via a games controller, a smartphone, or a program of your own design

To control the rover, JPL decided to use a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi:

We chose a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi to be the ‘brain’ of this rover for its versatility, 快手赞赞宝, simplicity, and ability to add and upgrade your own modifications. Any method with which you can communicate with a 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi (Bluetooth, WiFi, USB devices, etc.) can be interfaced into the control system of the robot.

Full plans for the six-wheel rover are available on JPL’s GitHub, where they also list all parts required, final specs, and supporting info such as links to the project forum and parts suppliers. You can also visit the official project website to control your own rover on the surface of Mars…a simulated rover, of course, but one can dream!

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新大地资源在线影视观看 Jams, Code Clubs, and CoderDojos all provide children (of all ages: we’re looking at you, Peter Onion) with a place where they can learn, share ideas, and make cool stuff with code and computers. But you can get so involved with the things you’re working on that you forget to take a step back every once in a while to look at what you’ve accomplished. And what do you do when you’ve shown your project to everyone you know, and you fancy a shot at a slightly larger audience?

Enter Coolest Projects International, now in its seventh year. Here’s a video that captures about 1% of the awesomeness of being there in person.

Coolest Projects brings Ninjas from CoderDojos across the globe together in Dublin for a chance to share their work with the world, and to compete to be coolest in one of several categories:

• Scratch projects
• Websites
• Games
• Mobile apps
• Hardware
• Evolution (basically, next-level stuff)

At this year’s event, more than 1000 children presented projects, from 15 countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, Italy, Japan, Romania, and Spain.

This is it! #CoolestProjects pic.twitter.com/eoepjNWLsC

— 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi (@新大地资源在线影视观看_Pi) May 26, 2018

And for the first time, Coolest Projects was open to 新大地资源在线影视观看 Jam and Code Club members, and to the broader 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi community.

Liz, our daughter Aphra, and I spent the day at the event, along with the CoderDojo team, what felt like half the 征服了同学的贵妇麻麻, keynote speaker Pete Lomas, and the most amazing army of volunteers. Between chugging slushies, I had the opportunity to judge hardware projects with Noel King, CoderDojo volunteer and co-founder of Coolest Projects. Noel provided the judges with a pep talk at the start of the day. He reminded us that the aim wasn’t necessarily to find the most complete, or polished, or technically audacious project, but to seek out creativity: the project that does something unique, or does something you’ve seen before but in a unique way.

To my mind, the focus on creativity is what sets Coolest Projects apart. This is, after all, a contest that aims to “empower and inspire the next generation of digital creators, innovators, changemakers, and entrepreneurs”, and that recognises that each of those activities is, at heart, a creative pursuit.

Unsurprisingly, given the strength of the field, judging went on for some time. Each category’s winner and runner-up were exceptional, and there were countless other projects that didn’t quite make the cut but that I’d be proud to have made myself. Where were these folks when I was a teenager?

You can see the winners and runners-up in each category on the Coolest Projects website, and you should also check out the winners of the six special prizes. One that especially struck me was Selin Alara Ornek’s project, iC4U, a robot guide dog that she developed at her local CoderDojo in Turkey.

While Coolest Projects started in Dublin, it’s now an international phenomenon. In the last couple of months we’ve seen Coolest Projects regional events in Belgium, Romania, and the UK.

In September we’ll be holding the inaugural Coolest Projects North America at the Discovery Cube in Orange County.

Coolest Projects began as a volunteer-run event, and we’re immensely privileged to have this wonderful showcase for our community. We are enormously grateful to all the staff and volunteers who continue to give huge amounts of their time, effort, and talent every year to make it the wonderful event that it is. Thank you, all of you.

Events like these give me hope that the future of our industry will be every bit as exciting, and vastly more diverse, than our past and present. If you have a chance to participate in one of them, I think you’ll come away feeling the same.

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Estefannie Explains It All + 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi

When Estefannie visited Pi Towers earlier this year, we introduced her to the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi Digital 首页中文字幕中文字幕 and the free resources on our website. We’d already chatted to her via email about the idea of creating a collab video for the 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi channel. Once she’d met members of the 征服了同学的贵妇麻麻 team and listened to them wax lyrical about the work we do here, she was even more keen to collaborate with us.

Ahhhh!!! I still can't believe I got to hang out and make stuff at the @新大地资源在线影视观看_Pi towers!! Thank you thank you!! pic.twitter.com/5gvk7BO1Dr

— a woman online (@estefanniegg) May 22, 2017

Estefannie returned to the US filled with inspiration for a video for our channel, and we’re so pleased with how awesome her final result is. The video is a super addition to our 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi YouTube channel, it shows what our resources can help you achieve, and it’s great fun. You might also have noticed that the project fits in perfectly with this season’s Pioneers challenge. A win all around!

So yeah, we’re really chuffed about this video, and we hope you all like it too!

Estefannie’s Laser Cookies guide

For those of you wanting to try your hand at building your own Cookie Jar Laser Surveillance Security System, Estefannie has provided a complete guide to talk you through it. Here she goes:

First off, you’ll need:

• 10 lasers
• 10 photoresistors
• 10 capacitors
• 1 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi Zero W
• 1 buzzer
• 1 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi Camera Module
• 12 ft PVC pipes + 4 corners
• 1 acrylic panel
• 1 battery pack
• 8 zip ties
• tons of cookies

I used the 征服了同学的贵妇麻麻’s Laser trip wire and the Tweeting Babbage resources to get one laser working and to set up the camera and Twitter API. This took me less than an hour, and it was easy, breezy, beautiful, 新大地资源在线影视观看 Pi.

I soldered ten lasers in parallel and connected ten photoresistors to their own GPIO pins. I didn’t wire them up in series because of sensitivity reasons and to make debugging easier.

Building the frame took a few tries: I actually started with a wood frame, then tried a clear case, and finally realized the best and cleaner solution would be pipes. All the wires go inside the pipes and come out in a small window on the top to wire up to the Zero W.

Using pipes also made the build cheaper, since they were about $3 for 12 ft. Wiring inside the pipes was tricky, and to finish the circuit, I soldered some of the wires after they were already in the pipes.

I tried glueing the lasers to the frame, but the lasers melted the glue and became decalibrated. Next I tried tape, and then I found picture mounting putty. The putty worked perfectly — it was easy to mold a putty base for the lasers and to calibrate and re-calibrate them if needed. Moreover, the lasers stayed in place no matter how hot they got.

Although the lasers were not very strong, I still strained my eyes after long hours of calibrating — hence the sunglasses! Working indoors with lasers, sunglasses, and code was weird. But now I can say I’ve done that…in my kitchen.

Using all the knowledge I have shared, this project should take a couple of hours. The code you need lives on my GitHub!

“The cookie recipe is my grandma’s, and I am not allowed to share it.”

Estefannie on YouTube

Estefannie made this video for us as a gift, and we’re so grateful for the time and effort she put into it! If you enjoyed it and would like to also show your gratitude, subscribe to her channel on YouTube and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. And if you make something similar, or build anything with our free resources, make sure to share it with us in the comments below or via our social media channels.

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