technology with intention
6th Grade
Tech class happenings from the 6th grade, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).
STEM: Lego Mindstorm Movement
288 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
STEM students returned from break and jumped back into the Mindstorm NXT programming that we began back in March. Today’s class was presented with 3 challenges:
- Make your robot climb an inclined plane and then traverse a table top, stopping within 1.5 cm of the far edge. Students were encouraged to succeed in this challenge using 3 different variables: wheel rotations, time and distance.
- Send your robot at least 10 feet away from its point of origin and then return to within a 6cm radius of the starting location.
- Program your robot to travel in a figure 8.
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Design Week 2011
305 days
6th and 8th grade students are busily engaged in the Billings tradition of “Design Week” in the days before Spring Break. How excited does everyone get about a week’s worth of exploration around this years topic of PLAY? 106.8 decibels worth of excited, according to our sound level meter! That is louder than a motorcycle or subway train.
To learn more about this year’s Design Week, check out the daily postings on our main website. If you are logged in as a school community member, you’ll have access to each day’s complete photo albums from the right sidebar.
Lego Robots – intro to programming
313 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade STEM students are spending Fridays through the end of the year learning about programming concepts and physics with Lego Robotics. We just built the Edubots in class. Arthur, Jake and Collin are all part of our afterschool club, so they are using this time to plan curriculum and robotics challenges for the rest of the class.
Lesson 1: Collin led an intro to the NXT programming environment and simple move commands. Super cool!
AT&T to buy T-Mobile
320 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade students discussed the possible reasons and outcomes of a T-Mobile USA takeover by AT&T.
The conversation was wide-ranging…some of the topics discussed:
- what is the history of AT&T?
- how would the purchase of T-Mobile help AT&T provide service to it’s users?
- how would T-Mobile’s customers experience the change?
- how do cell phone companies marketing departments claim colors to represent their company?
- why does the US have more than one cell phone technology (CDMA, GSM, etc)?
- what is a monopoly?
- why is competition important for the US?
- what is the electromagnetic spectrum?
STEM: getting to know 101 neighbors
333 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
With winter program over, students are eagerly back into Friday STEM experiences. We revisited our learning of binary code from back in December and took our knowledge out to explore the community.
Students were presented with 100-year-old photos of Green Lake businesses. Each photo included its street address written in binary code. Students were tasked with decoding the numbers and then visiting each location to take a photo.
In each photo, students are standing either facing the camera or away from it, representing ones and zeros. Their body language spells out the street address in binary!
*Historic images from “Seattle’s Green Lake” by Brittany Wright.
Spanish scripting in Scratch
334 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
Another amazing Spanish version of true/false. This game was created by 6th grade student Gus:
Cache in, trash out
336 days
Geocaching club this week had two amazing finds. Using global positioning satellites we hunted down a multi-step cache south of school and then searching out a decommissioned Seattle bomb shelter.
As we get more comfortable with the guidelines of geocaching, we’ve decided to add another level to our experiences, in keeping with the EcoSchool’s Global Dimensions Pathway that we aspire towards. Students picked up garbage while we hunted for caches: a concept referred to as Cache In, Trash Out.
Intro to 3D programming
355 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade students have graduated from their 2D programming in Scratch to 3D. Today we ran through a couple of tutorials in Alice and learned about objects and methods. As with most of the programs we use, Alice is a free download – there is a link on our student programs homepage.
Mid-winter break animation opportunity
362 days
Billings students tend to get pretty excited about all the animation and video projects we do. In a couple of weeks a local Seattle non-profit is offering an Animation Camp that sounds like tons of fun! We have quite a few alum who have spent their summers empowered by the incredible teachers at ReelGrrls, here are the details:
Mon-Fri, February 21 – 25, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Reel Grrls New Media Lab in Seattle’s Central District, 1409 21st Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Ages: Open to young women ages 9 – 19. Beginning and advanced media-makers welcome!
Cost: $275, or pay what you can. No participants turned away due to lack of funds.
Registration: Register Online OR Download a printable registration form to send in via email, fax, or post (coming soon).
Open to beginning and advanced animators! Learn new animation skills and styles from professional women animators. Explore different styles of animation and complete a short animated film in an all-girl non-competitive environment. Get hands-on experience with state of the art technology and support from adult women mentors.
ReelGrrls is also offering a weekly class that meets Wednesday afternoons.
“Lights, Cameras…Reel Grrls”
Afterschool video production class for girls ages 11-19 starting February 19. Girls will use professional quality cameras, learn Final Cut Pro editing software and create basic stop motion animation. The program meets Wed. afternoons starting March 2 (plus a few Saturdays). Full scholarships available for any Billings student receiving full or partial financial aid. To register or for questions, check out the ReelGrrls website.
Details on dates and times are:
February 16–6 PM Family Orientation (recommended but not required). Saturdays: February 19, March 19, April 9 10 AM to 4 PM
Wednesdays: March 2 through May 4 4 PM – 6:30 PM (no class April 20)
Location: Reel Grrls New Media Lab in Seattle’s Central District, 1409 21st Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Programming in Spanish
362 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade students have spent the last month putting their programming skills to the test in Spanish class. We’ve used logic statements, broadcasting and variables to create fun human-computer interaction experiences. A selection of the games will be published online, please enjoy Rachel H.’s finished product:
