Making a physical device that responds to you or the environment is compelling to most people – for many, more compelling than writing a program that displays a form on a computer screen (unless that form is the login of a game of course). The challenge with teaching ‘physical computing’ is that it has required some level of skill in programming, electronics, and fabrication (soldering, breadboarding,…) before you can do a first trivial project. The investment/reward calculation at that point is all wrong for many students. Gadgeteer turns that around by making it possible to build compelling projects immediately with simple high level programming skills. Let’s look at what happened when we took.NET Gadgeteer into a public high school.
The.NET Gadgeteer kit is made up of a mainboard with a 32 bit processor (about as powerful as a PC from the mid to late 1980s). It comes with a very complete complement of peripheral sensors, actuators, radios, cameras, storage devices, LEDs, audio devices, and much more. It is enough to build security systems, cameras, MP3 players, and many other projects. All of the modules can be simply plugged in to the main board and used without any electronics knowledge. The applications are programmed in Visual Studio using C#.
In February, I spent two days introducing students from 5-6 classes to.NET Gadgeteer as a way to see how successful they could be with creating devices. Most of these students had no exposure to programming before. None had any exposure to electronics. The afternoon before, I asked one of the students what he would like to build. His first suggestion was an MP3 player – certainly possible but not an ideal first project when we only have 2 days. He then asked how you could control an LED. That became our first project. The following day, we presented the application to the students and went over the concepts of writing and deploying the application in just a few minutes before having the students start typing in the program. Here is what happened next:
Almost all the students were able to get the program working in the first hour - many in much less time.
The students were able to develop an understanding of event based programming and a simple if-else statement which was all that the program entailed.
Some students then went on to do variations on the original project. In the process, we were able to introduce a deeper understanding of how the development environment worked and more programming concepts seamlessly as they came across a need. The projects they built included a digital camera, a motion sensing security camera, a thermostat with adjustable alarms and more. The record went to a team that put together 4 and a half such projects in their first hour.
In self-reporting on their experience almost all students reported some significant new insight and many reported an interest in continuing.
I left the classroom very excited about the potential for interesting students in technology and teaching them programming in an exciting and organic way. When I looked for some programming resources to send to the instructor to help him move this forward with the students, what I found were only standard programming texts with a chapter on computer theory followed by a chapter on conditional logics and so on. This is not the way anyone I know first learned to program. We all got something working and then figured out how to get something else working and learned programming in the process – then we read the programming text. The.NET Gadgeteer can be a tool for making that iterative learning process more accessible and fun for the students and the instructors.
Many thanks to Chris Connors and Pembroke High School (Pembroke Massachusetts) for giving me the opportunity to work with the students. I hope they can continue the projects that the students started.
“I felt proud after I finished programming because I had made and programmed my own device”“Now that I know how to use it, I want to learn more with it. I think that it is amazing how you can make something work with simple computer code”“Now I have an idea of how most of the electronics I own work. It gave me higher expectations for the future”“It was a good having your device work in front of your own eyes. It makes you want to discover more about the system and how it works.”My son suffers from what is called, atypical migraines. This being a side effect he endures from a year and half of chemotherapy. Even early on, after having his first bout, we both agreed that he is blessed. The list of possible side effects given to me prior to his surgery and treatment was so lengthy, even with something as debilitating as migraines are, he is blessed to have so few residuals from his time spent with cancer.
Life provides us the tools we need to grow in various ways. They do not always come by way of religious text or even spiritual text. Some of our most important catalysts for expansion come by way of every day things. My son’s atypical migraines are no exception. They have been a pivotal learning point for him as well as me.
Many of you already know I used to speak publicly on the subject of raising confident children. It is what sits at the heart of my children’s chapter book series and it sits at the core of how I parent. But it wasn’t always that way. There was a pivotal point in my life that caused me to change how I view everything, both inward and outward. Whereas I used to believe I was on this earth solely to bring my children into this world and tend to them while here, certain spiritual events occurred that revealed the error of my perception. The souls housed within my children had chosen me as their guide. Their souls were not concerned with the level of wealth I could drape upon them. Nor were their souls concerned with the ease of living I could provide. The soul never cares about such things. There is a line in my favorite poem by Kahlil Gibran that reads: You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. And that is what their souls wanted from me.
I’m not afraid to admit dear reader, that prior to this vital time in my life I was blind to my own ways. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t empowered. Both due to my own choices. And that unfulfilled bow was the launching point from which the arrows that are my children flew. Everything changed for me once my awareness shifted. Everything. I began empowering myself, thereby empowering them. One moment in particular displays this shift in clarity. My son was driving back from college with his sister in tow. He called home. An atypical migraine was descending upon him. He didn’t know what to do. And everything in me wanted to scoop him under my wing and drive him home. For those who don’t know, atypical migraines involve having a temporary, pixelated impairment to one eye, among other things. What I did next would either disable him or enable him. Instead of dropping the bow, I held it steady and guided him on how to do it on his own. The plan: Don’t panic. Compensate for the visual disturbance. Go slow. And if it becomes dangerous, I’ll come get you.
I sat for the next hour with tears in my eyes and breath suspended in my chest. I knew he was being given the chance to experience for himself his own strength. I could not make the moment about me and mine. The moment was about him and his. So I did as I knew I was suppose to do, I steadily launched the arrow, and waited.
He made it home safe, and I exhaled. But now, so many years later he knows his own power. A truth he would not own if I had taken it from him. When the effects of a migraine descend upon him he knows he’ll be alright. Like a small child who falls for the first time then looks at their parent for the appropriate response my son looked to me. What my response was then, is his response now. Don’t panic. You can do this. You’ll be alright. And yesterday, my very typical college son who works a meager paying job for summer employment did not call in to work when he awoke with an atypical migraine, he texted me instead and said: I can do this. I’ll be alright.
I don’t believe parenting is so difficult. But parenting well is. Often it has required a level of strength within me I wasn’t sure I had. That’s how I know these catalysts were meant for me, as well. I’m blessed to be launching these two souls. I make many mistakes along the way, but I know they bring to the world their joy, strength and depth. And I hope my bow is what gets them there.
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