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Toy Making and Hacking Camp

The Camp Projects

Through the five-day camp, I offered the campers the following activities:

Stomp Rockets
Gliders
Galton Board
Bead People
Box Foosball
Bobsleds
Fingerboards
Pizza Box Pinball Machines
Toy Take Apart and Repurposing

There were 20 campers with a $400 budget equalling $20/camper for mostly consumable materials. About 1/3 of that was used to purchase used battery-operated toys for the final activity – toy take apart and repurposing.

The following slide deck provides an overview of the camp activities. I used it to present the activities to the campers.

Stomp Rockets

The materials and supplies list and the directions for making stomp rockets can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Stomp-Rockets-1/

Using stomp rockets as a first activity was a great way to start off the week. It was high impact, and the campers enjoyed watching how high they travel.

Foosball Games

The materials and supplies list included:

Glue (any kind with work)
10 Clothespins
A Shoebox (or a small box 4 ½ inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 13 inches long)
4 wooden Dowels
A Ping Pong Ball or Toy Soccer Ball
A Sharpie or Pen
A Knife A Ruler

Directions for making it can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Shoebox-Foosball-Table-1/

The campers liked both making and playing the game. I was happy to show them how to use rulers to insure proper construction which integrated math directly into the activity. It was also fun to hear how they played the game with their families during the evening.

Galton Boards

The materials and supplies list included:

Printable
Cork or poster board
Hot Glue
Push Pins
Craft sticks
Round beads – 1/4″

Directions for this activity can be found at https://abakcus.com/diy/how-to-make-a-galton-board/

I like how Galton Boards directly incorporate math concepts, and how fun it is to watch the beads drop. This was a totally untested activity but want to give it a try. It wasn’t successful. I think a few campers liked it, but overall, the struggle making it didn’t equal the rewards.

Bead People

The materials and supplies were simply beads of various sizes, bead wire, and wire cutters.

Since I knew making the Galton Board would be a challenge for some of the campers, I offered them the choice to make bead people. There are pretty simple to make, but here are some directions – https://workshopsessayer.com/diy-bead-dolls/.

Most of the campers really liked making their bead people. A few weren’t quite successfully, so it follows that they didn’t enjoy it.

Paper Bobsleds and Bobsled Runs

The materials and supplies list included:

100 lb. cardstock – one or two pieces (plus straight track template [5 to 8 sheets] and curved track template [4 to 5 sheets] printed on the cardstock)
Old double AA batteries (2)
Optional – 3” wide packing tape (for tracks; to make them smoother)
scissors
hot glue

I created an Instructable tutorial which can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Paper-Bobsledding/

The campers seemed to enjoy making the bobsleds but making the tracks work correctly proved a bit difficult for them. I don’t believe I would use this activity with elementary-level students in the future

Fingerboards

Here are the directions I created for this activity:

As I predicted, at the end of the camp many of the campers expressed that this was their favorite camp activity.

Pizza Box Pinball Machines

I created an Instructable tutorial, Cardboard Pinball Machine Using a Pizza Box, Strawbees, and a Micro:bit, for this activity which includes the needed materials and directions, and can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Cardboard-Pinball-Machine-Using-a-Pizza-Box-Strawb/.

This was a fun and successful activity for most of the campers. It did require lots of iteration which was okay for the majority but proved too much for a few. Also, for some there wasn’t enough time to add the micro:bit scoreboard and servo-driven flipper.

Toy Take Apart and Repurposing

The materials include old battery operated handheld games and/or stuffed animals, various size screwdrivers, and low temp glue guns/glue.

I have done this activity on several occasions with my gifted students. See more at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/toy-take-apart-and-hacking/ and https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2022/05/23/toy-take-apart-and-repurposing-a-creative-problem-solving-lesson/.

I always end this camp with this activity. The campers love taking apart the battery operated toys and creating new ones. They are told to make prototypes of new toys using the parts of from their (and their co-campers parts). As is typical, though, a few campers had some difficulty being creative with their new creations.

Written by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.

June 19, 2023 at 12:08 am

Posted in Education, Maker Education

Tagged with camp, experiential learning, iteration, maker education, social-emotional learning, STEAM

A STEM Camp for Young Learners

Some Evidence of the Importance of STEM in the Early Years

Research tells us that children’s early experience builds brain architecture and lays the foundation for one’s lifelong thinking skills and approach to learning, both critical roots of STEM success. After all, the STEM disciplines require not only content knowledge but also robust thinking dispositions—such as curiosity and inquiry, questioning and skepticism, assessment and analysis—as well as a strong learning mindset and confidence when encountering new information or challenges. These need to be developed in a child’s early education, beginning in infancy and continuing through third grade to lay the roots for STEM success. (McClure et al., 2017) (The Roots of STEM Success: Changing Early Learning Experiences to Build Lifelong Thinking Skills)

According to a new research project, children who engage in scientific activities at an early age (between birth and age 8) develop positive attitudes toward science, build up their STEM “vocabularies” and do better at problem solving, meeting challenges and acquiring new skills. “STEM starts early: Grounding science, technology, engineering and math education in early childhood,” published by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and New America and supported by a National Science Foundation grant, has asserted that “the seeds of STEM must be planted early,” right alongside the “seeds of literacy.” Together, the report said, “these mutually enhancing, interwoven strands of learning will grow well informed, critical citizens prepared for a digital tomorrow.” (Research: Let’s Move STEM Learning Earlier)

The Camp

Due to the experiential nature of most of my instruction, I use an experiential cycle of learning:

What follows is how I applied it during the STEM camp.

Framing the Activities

The STEM activities were introduced through (1) the use of Brainpop videos and their accompanying quizzes, and (2) tutorial videos and/or webpages with directions. Brainpop videos, due to their animation and humor, have a high interest value for kids, and their follow-up quizzes help to create more active learning. After the Brainpop video introduction, the campers were given an overview of the specific activities through the tutorials. I then would show them the tutorial step-by-step. For some campers, seeing the tutorial in its entirety was enough for them to do the project. Others needed me to go over the project step-by-step using the tutorials as guides. I prefer using online tutorials rather than doing them myself as demonstrations because the tutorials can be projected for a larger image and better viewing by all of the learners.

These specific resources can be found in the slide deck below:

The Doing

The camp consisted mostly of campers DOING the STEM activities. See below for a photographic journey of their engagement in the activities.

Reflection

Activity reflections occurred after the completion of the day’s activities using science journals:

hh258

https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/el/s/HH258

Journals such as these not only benefit the learners but the educator, too. They provide such good activity evaluation information. For example, the last day of camp, students selected two photos from the week from all of the week’s photos that represented their favorite activities. These were printed for them and they then glued the images into their journals and wrote about them. They then did a verbal check-in to tell the rest of us which ones they selected and why.

When they were sharing these with the rest of the group, one of the girls mentioned that the DIY crystals was her favorite. I was totally surprised. I thought this activity was a dude as the kids didn’t seem that excited about them. I was thinking about dropping it as a STEM activity in the future but now I will, due to her comment, consider using it again.