Pico 8 would have really impressed me at 5th grade.. I think you can get an education license as well
Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
31–40 of 246 posts
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#32bring in a C64, Mac LC, ipad. So many ways to illustrate the advances in 20-30 yrs.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#33Hmmm, maybe some and arduino based led system for your drone. Kids could learn about for loops, if statements, etc.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#34I have held many such sessions for kids. Instead of showing them the latest and the greatest: - I point them to the technology already around them, in their daily use, that they see as too obvious by now. And then share stories of how all that had come about to be. Simple things like soap, door handles, stairs, pencils, clocks, ... - Ask them simple questions that they never asked. How does an eraser erase pencil mar…
Add-on comment: If you do want to talk about some core technology only, I would show them how mechanical switches work, and how you can connect them in series and parallel to do logic. Take some wall switches and break them open to show them what's inside.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#35Maybe build something cool on Raspberry Pi?
Facial or object recognition, or google makes a cardboard AI kit so you can build a voice controlled digital assistant.
Or a pi robot kit, or pi handheld gaming systems.
I love these because it shows kids the technology of the future is not locked up in an ivory tower, it is available to anyone who wants to give it a shot.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#36Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#37Interactive AR sandbox. It would take some time to built and have some cost with it, but I bet it will blow their tiny minds. https://arsandbox.ucdavis.edu/
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#38I've done an interactive "do you know how many types of engineers there are?" for this age group that's worked really well. Timeframe: 5-15 minutes
"Can anyone name a type of engineer?" and for each shoutout, talk a little about what each does. The guessing keeps everyone's attention.
Types: software/computer, electrical, mechanical, chemical, environmental, civil, nuclear, aeronautical, etc.
Bonus: bring 2-3 props (your drones would be GREAT) that you can hold up for the relevant flavor.
For drones, I like to ask: "how do you think the drone moves forward?" [over power the rear two, underpower the front] Same Q for other directions.
"how do you think it rotates?"
"why don't all props spin in the same direction?"
Bring one of these to fly in the room: https://www.amazon.com/Cheerson-CX-10-Diameter-2-4GHz-Quadco...
Talk about how there's actually a computer on board.
If you have access to a TV, bring a short ~2min drone POV video to show.
Tell bad jokes ("Civil engineers are very nice to each other", etc.) Google online for some.
It's all about energy and making it interactive.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#39scratch.mit.edu
My kid is using it literally this minute. You can very easily make a program where the sprite follows the cursor until it catches it. Or two sprites that bounce off each other. Or anything more complex, with sounds, background images, and so on.
Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology
#40how about lego mindstorm?
I second that, I mean, how do you impress kids ... well with a robot that reacts to their actions and that they can program themselves, I thought about that robot the Anki Cozmo (company just went bankrupt) and is super fun to play with, but hard to code your own stuff, my second thought was to do something fun with an arduino or raspberry pi and maybe those big colorful buzzer buttons (I did a music quiz like that: https://github.com/chrisweb/arduino-nodejs-music-quiz-game ;) ) but I don't think this is suited for kids, it's more something for teenagers, so yeah for ages 10-11 probably mindstorms is the best
But not just mindstorms, maybe LEGO boost is actually better suited: https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/boost
Everything related to coding and LEGOs can be found here: https://education.lego.com/en-us/coding