Check out PLTW's 2019 STEM Gift List!

Some PLTW teachers around the country gave their recommendations for great STEM gifts. 

Click here for the gift list!

(I personally love GoldiBlox products and Sphero mini! Really fun and relatively inexpensive.)

Third Grade: Forces and Simple Machines

Grade 3 students have been studying forces, simple and compound machines, and magnets. They will use all of this knowledge when they build a compound machine using VEX kits to solve the real-world problem of rescuing a (plastic toy) tiger who fell in the moat at a zoo!

                            Using 3D software and working as a group to build a pulley.

Exploring levers at centers. 

Designing and building a compound machine

                                        Exploring how magnets interact with other magnets

Explaining how their compound machine works in a video

Exploring what happens when magnets are brought close to iron filings

5th Grade Robotics: Programming Autonomous Robots

5th graders have moved onto programming their robots to move without the use of a remote control. We used a new app called VEX IQ Blocks to give the robot the directions we want it to follow. Students have practiced making the robot move in a straight line, making it move in a square, and making it push blocks into a collection zone. They create the program on the app and then wirelessly download the program to the robot.  

Measuring how far the robot needs to travel to get to a block. 

Testing the program after downloading it. 

One of the fields students program the robot to move blocks off of. 

Will the program be successful?

Screenshot of code in the VEX IQ Blocks app

Applications for 5th Grade Robotics Club will be sent home next week. The Club prepares for the AAPS District-Wide Elementary Robotics Competition in January, and will meet during 2 lunch recesses a week, beginning the week of November 11th. The applications are due to me Monday, November 11th. 

4th Grade student Coding in Tynker 

Students worked in pairs to program together in a coding app called Tynker.  They switched roles between being the navigator and the driver, which helped them grow in the areas of communication and collaboration. 

Below are some examples of code in the Tynker app. We made a game where the purple alien "eats" the blue, pink, and green aliens and the program draws a chart at the end to show how many of each alien the purple alien ate. We incorporated discussion about data and how charts and graphs help us better interpret information/data.

Moving Right Along...


4th Graders have been studying potential and kinetic energy and why things move the way they do. They have learned that when objects collide, the energy moves from one object to another. The big project for the unit was for students to modify a car they had built out of VEX kit pieces with cotton balls, bubble wrap, foam and other various materials in order to keep their raw egg from breaking when the car was crashed. We had learned that foam and bubble wrap absorb a lot of energy so students used a lot of foam and bubble wrap in their designs! (And, of course, I had to remind them to not pop the bubbles!)

Our egg made it! No cracks!

5th graders have been learning engineering principles of designing a model to solve a problem and then modifying it until it does what they want it to do, all while operating within certain constraints and meeting all criteria. They have been re-designing their robots to move blocks off a field in timed challenges. Some groups are figuring out ways to make robot arm extensions move with extra motors! 

                                   

Great ideas and great teamwork!

Welcome to the 2019-20 School Year!

We have begun Project Lead the Way Computer Science and Engineering Classes at Pattengill for the 2019-20 school year! In this first 8 week session, 4th grade has begun their energy unit in which they use the VEX construction kits to build various mechanisms that help them not only learn how to work in a group, but also to study the way that objects move and what this has to do with different types of  energy.

Working as a group with job roles to build a pendulum using 3D Software.

Measuring how far their vehicle rolls when released from a certain distance marked on the posterboard ramp.

                          Lots of great group work happening in our new collaboration room at Pattengill!

Mrs. Embry's and Ms. Kimmey/Ms. Beech's 5th grade classes have begun working with the VEX robotics kits, studying inputs and outputs, as well as how the robotics pieces operate. So far, we have built a "testbed" with all of the motorized robotics pieces and students are conducting several investigations with them to understand how they work. We will begin building the robots very soon and then completing timed challenges using them. These challenges incorporate collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication--the 4 Cs of 21st century thinking!

5th graders using 3D software to build a robotics testbed in order to investigate how the  robotics pieces work.

Investigating with the testbed.