Project Ideas
Image by Norton Gusky on Flickr
These projects mix science and technology in interesting ways. Sewing and electronics, for example, is a different way to learn about electronics.
An Intro to Sewing Circuits Affordably
Sewing and electronics make a fun mix and engage people who otherwise might be overwhelmed or not interested in technology projects. Colleen Graves and her husband, Aaron, created The Big Book of Maker Space Projects which includes a number of sewing projects. Colleen also has written on her website lots of details and links about her experiences, what worked and didn’t work. If you’re interested, these links are a great place to start.
Light Painting
Painting with LED lights and a camera can produce beautiful photographs of motion and teach the physics of objects in motion. The only difficult part of this project might be finding a camera that lets you set F-stop, ISO, and shutter speed settings. This project is fun because of all the things they photograph, from balls and tubes to bikes.
3D Selfies
While not a hands-on project, having a 3D scan and model might be a thought provoking experience. Dress as you want, show up, then stand in a position for a few minutes as a scanner moves around you. This might be a fun idea to capture yourself at different ages. Available worldwide.
Learn More
Sewing Circuits Affordably
https://colleengraves.org/2016/11/05/an-intro-to-sewing-circuits-affordably/
https://colleengraves.org/2015/07/16/sewing-circuits-at-dpl/
Light Painting
http://instructables.com/id/Learning-about-Motion-with-Lightpainting/?ALLSTEPS
3D Selfies
https://www.doob3d.com/
https://shapify.me/
http://www.uscan360.com/
http://www.shapeways.com/discover/3d-printed-selfies
http://www.3dselfies.com/
Author
Also In The December 2016 Issue
Hour of Code and EU Code Week are events designed to introduce kids, young adults, and others to programming and computer science.
Real life treasure hunts are a way to get outdoors, learn map skills, and have fun finding hidden caches near you.
A trainable puppy plus treats plus technology equals a dog that can send selfies. Here's how.
An app to help kids remember important stuff like feed your pets, brush your teeth, and smile.
These books include lots of great projects to work on by yourself or with others, from Scratch and Minecraft to fun maker space projects.
The mBot robotics kit is an excellent comparatively low-cost way to begin working with robots.
There are maybe a bazillion Raspberry Pi projects online. Here are really fun projects plus links to find more.
The Wayback Machine lets you travel back in time to see old websites. Plus the Internet Archive has thousands of vintage games, software, books, and more.
Eating dog food doesn't sound like much fun but it's an important part of creating software.
The ability to identify patterns, decompose large problems into small parts, develop algorithms to solve problems, and generalize to find solutions.
To celebrate this wonderful time of the year, let’s create some holiday music using Sonic Pi on our Raspberry Pi.
This project shows how to use the pygame code library to move simple animations with the Python programming language.
This project, shows you how to create your own random password generator in the C# programming language.
This project teaches you about binary numbers and how to translate them to decimal numbers we recognize.
These projects mix science and technology in interesting ways. Sewing and electronics, for example, is a different way to learn about electronics.
Links from the bottom of all the December 2016 articles, collected in one place for you to print, share, or bookmark.
Interesting stories about computer science, software programming, and technology for December 2016.
What sounds like a country western dance actually is an efficient way to sort large sets of data randomly.
