Monthly Archives: April 2015

This is the second time Maker Faire team is putting up a Pop Up Maker Space at the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair held in Science Centre on the 11th and 12th of March. I must say that it attracted so much crowd, especially on the second day, since the judging was over and students were much more relaxed and free.

Yasu made mircowaveable origami, David Liew did Notebook Hacking, 12 Geeks did cool tech stuff and we made microscopes.

Microwaveable origami, the name sounds cool right? Bascially, you stick heat shrink tubing with thin strips of aluminium on paper wherever you want it to be folded. Then you place it inside the microwave and the heat shrink tubing shrinks when heated, as the name suggests, and you get the shape you want!

David Liew brought embossing machines, paper design cutters, various coloured ink pads etc and students were to emboss their book cover or cards and decorate it with any of the provided materials. It was up to their creativity.

Luther and Fazli brought bananas which played music! Actually they connected the bananas to Makey makeys and once the students touched the bananas the circuits were closed as their bodies are conductors of electricity. The Makey Makeys are connected to the Scratch software in the computer which is programmed in such a way that each banana makes a different sound (Doh, Ray, Me, Fah, Soh, Lah. Te, Doh). They also brought along a VR headset and students had the experience of virtual reality. It was also fun comparing the commersial headsets with a $2 version.

Bananas can replace pianos (with Makey Makeys)?

The activity that we conducted was making microscopes out of laser pointers. Three easy steps:

1. Dismantle the laser pointers
2. Take the lens out
3. Attach the lens to your phone camera using a transparent tape or poke a hole through a foam sheet, fit the lens into the hole and then attach the lens to your phone camera

Did you know that grey ink that we see on a printed paper is actually made up of white dots on a black background?

Microscopic view of a tea bag

That isn’t his blister, it’s just his skin

Mass destruction of laser pointers :P

The research students aged between 16 to 18, being so interested in Making such things, instead of saying that “All these can be bought isn’t it? Why bother Making?” shows that Singaporean youths embrace/have started embracing Making. The fact that they enjoyed the Pop up Maker Space was evident from the never-ending crowd and the excitement on their faces.

Science Centre Singapore collaborated with The Kidz Parade to organise a two days long Make ‘n’ Speak camp which was all about design thinking, and of course Making. The theme of the camp was sustainability. The main objective was for the kids to Make a prototype which allows life to be more sustainable.

Day 1
The kids understood what sustainability is all about through brief discussions and also through a guided tour around the climate change exhibition. I believe that after the exhibition they had a better idea of what the world is facing now and why thinking about sustainability is important. After that they were told to think of two things:

(i) The problem -> The solution
The solution should be in the form of a machine and not just “Don’t do it because it harms the Earth”

(ii) A problem which already has a solution —> Make the solution more effective

There were discussions about how there should be lunar panels instead of only solar panels. Some kids talked about how water is being wasted and automatic taps and motion sensor taps were invented to decrease water wastage. Another group discussed about the waste of toilet paper because people wash hand and waste a lot of toilet paper and that led to the invention of hand dryer. Thats when one kid asked “Isn’t that a waste of electricty?”.

Thats when the facilitators stepped in to explain to the kids that we compare which is more eco-friendly and cost-effective when we find solutions. We could tell that the children tried their best to think and also attempted to answer our questions instead of expecting answers from us. The usage of the Scratch software and Makey Makey was also taught to them so that they can incorporate that technology into their innovative inventions. They were also breifed on presentation skills such as acting confident even when one is nervous by not fidgiting and having eye contact with the audience rather than just looking in front. At the end of the day each kid had his or her own idea(a rough one at least) of the prototype they might want to make.

Climate Change Exhibition

Listening intently to the briefing on presentation skills

Makey Makey and Scratch

“Makey Makey can do cool stuff. So how do I make my sprite move, mhmm?”

Day 2

It started off with ideation where the kids thought and discussed more about their prototype and decided on a prototype their group will be taking up as their project. And then the Making started…

The children were so brilliant! Many of them had to try again and again to make their propeller rotate using a DC motor, solar-powered gadgets work, enable to the car wheels to rotate etc. Some worked in a team very well while others had issues working as team because they were not open to suggestions from their fellow team-mates. But eventually they had to come to a decision and one had to give in to the other. We were also glad to see children being able to learn from failures, pick themselves up and think of another alternative. One or two groups felt that they did not achieve what they wanted to but they did not pull a long face. Instead they explained what went wrong and what could have been better with utmost pride of their own creation. When we said dismantle certain parts of your prototype because we need the solar panels, DC motors etc back, they were so sportive. They immediately did so and brought the remaining back home.

Solar panels

Plane in the Making

Trying to make the pulley work

Wheels

The tsunami causes the turbine to turn which produces current which is then transmitted to the houses through wires. Such a cute and creative idea.

“Teacher could you please help me with this?”

Saying that the facilitators were impressed with the kids attitude and Making skills is definitely an understatement. They simply knocked us off our feet. And at the end of the day I thought “At their age, I was probably doodling on paper and watching cartoons. Look at them they talk about DC motors, LEDs, batteries, solar panels etc. I learnt them all in secondary school.”