Workshops

All participants for the 2-day event can choose a Workshop for Thursday Day 1 and Friday Day 2. The following Workshops are being offered;

mBot Construction Time Lapse

mBot Construction Timelapse.mp4



Power Anchor — Battle Bots and Stomp Rocket – Mark Woolley, Peter Duvenhage


We will construct Helicars from 90% recycled materials and then battle them against each other around a power anchor. If we have time we will create stomp rockets. Each of these activities can be a great way to learn about science and tech, tech mandatory and maths concepts like measurement, data handling and manipulation, angles, speed, thrust, acceleration and terminal velocity.  


The CEO has two power anchors that can be lent out to schools to help facilitate these activities.


  

Paper Planes Unit of work for Stages 2/3 – Dulcie Ryman


The workshop will focus on the process that was used to develop a STEM unit of work around  an excursion [ HARS] and the media [movie, Paper Planes]. The purpose was to make it user-friendly for teachers and having the resources easily accessed electronically. Participants will take a closer look at the unit of work;

  • Looking at key ideas for the unit
  • Syllabus outcomes and content descriptors 
  • Adjustments vs Differentiation 
  • Program format
Participants will be given opportunities to make  paper planes, trial, develop criteria, improve their plane and compete.

Everyone Can Code with Swift Playgrounds – Michelle Heath

Learning to code in the classroom teaches students how to solve problems and work together in creative ways. We believe coding is an essential skill. So we’ve designed a new approach to coding that lets anyone learn, write and teach it.

Join us for a workshop where you will:

  • Learn why Swift is the best language for teaching and learning coding, and for app development
  • Explore how the Swift Playgrounds app for iPad can make learning to code fun and interactive for your students
  • Explore how the Teacher Guides for App Development with Swift and Swift Playgrounds can help expand your understanding of coding with Swift

The Flipped Classroom – Heather Davis

Use video as a means to make better use of your face-to-face time with students.
As an introduction to flipped learning, this session will look at a number of different ways you can flip your classroom, as well as practical advice for getting students and their parents on board, video making tips and tools, and feedback from students.

Google Classroom – Christina Fraser

Hands-on workshop – Learn to create your Google classroom, communicate with parents and students, incorporate classrooms with google calendars, upload resources. Learn to provide feedback, grade and return tasks. Learn how google drive works with classroom and experience a variety of online tools to add to your classroom such as wizerme and edpuzzle.

Accessible to all levels of experience and laptop and iPad friendly.

Mouse Trap Car – Danny Avalos

They may be simple machines, but their educational value packs a wallop. Mousetrap cars are a classic activity that challenges students to apply STEM principles in the construction of a self-starting vehicle powered by the spring of an ordinary mousetrap.

Every element of a mousetrap vehicle – materials used, the circumference of the wheels, wheel-to-axle ratio, length and width of chassis, spring and even the surface on which the vehicles are raced – will impact the performance of the cars.
By repeatedly modifying the design and measuring the outcome, students apply STEM and problem-solving skills and data to the task of making their vehicle meet specific performance and assessment criteria.

A fun engaging project-based learning activity for any age group.



MaKey MaKey – Marcus Schappi/Peter Dalmaris (Little Bird Electronics)

MaKey MaKey: Not just for Banana Pianos!

In this workshop we’ll look at the humble MaKey MaKey projects you can replicate in the classroom that tie directly to the new Australian Curriculum outcomes.










mBots: Up and Running with mBots
 – Marcus Schappi/Peter Dalmaris (Little Bird Electronics)
mBot


In this workshop we’ll get you up and Running with the mBot STEM Robot. Peter Dalmaris (PHD) is an electronics hobbyist and Maker, creator of eight online video courses on DIY electronics and author of three technical books. 

As a Chief Tech Explorer since 2013 at Tech Explorations, the company he founded in Sydney, Australia, Peter’s mission is to explore technology and help educate the world. 




Soldering: What is it and how do you do it? – Mark Hamlet

There are plenty of great STEM Electronics projects available, however they all require one important skill — Soldering.

This presentation will show you the different types of soldering irons, solder, soldering equipment and most importantly how to use them to solder up your next STEM project.

You will learn the best techniques, tips and tricks to the art of soldering correctly, and how to teach your students this skill in a classroom setting.


New to STEM? How Do I Begin? – Bridgeen Pritchard

New to STEM? Want to start leading STEM in your school/classroom? How do I begin?

Bridgeen will share how she began simply with a Year 2 group and how this is now evolving in her current school. Bridgeen is particularly focused on encouraging girls involvement in STEM.

We will also share with you ways to engage and support other staff members in STEM.

This Workshop will offer you simply ways to assist in initiating or leading STEM within your school or classroom and creating authentic learning experiences that are linked to the curriculum.

Drones in Schools – Cameron Dribbus

TED like presentation about how drone technology is becoming more and more beneficial in society. 

How can drones be used in schools for education?  What does current technology allow drones to do?

Take home messages:
  • How drones work
  • How drones can be used in schools
  • Drone technology in the 21st Century

If venue permits live demonstration and flight. Highly interactive presentation with a huge WOW factor

Bristlebots – Brendan Park, Nick Nell

Create a simple robot from toothbrushes, button cells, and miniature motors. a great mix of craft, basic electronics and art.

Squishy Circuits – Craig Ebing, Helmien Ebing

Sculpture Challenge... 

Learn how create conductive play-doh then how to build circuits with it. Another combination of art, electricity, chemistry, cooking ...


Swift – Mark Malady

Swift


From Apple’s website:

“Swift is a powerful and intuitive programming language for macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS. Writing Swift code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and Swift includes modern features developers love. Swift code is safe by design, yet also produces software that runs lightning-fast.”

This session will introduce you to fundamental coding concepts writing Swift code in Xcode. You will create a basic iOS app.

You will need a MacBook with Xcode 8 installed. Download Xcode from the Mac App Store.


Real World Computing Raspberry Pi – Alan Ibbett

Ok, so you have your $50 computer (Raspberry Pi) and you have played with Scratch and done a few programs in Python. So how can you set it up to be a weather station? Lets say you want it to send tweets or even read tweets...

This session will show you how to connect your Raspberry Pi to real sensors and share that data with the internet because we all know that the internet needs to know the temperature of your Raspberry Pi every 5 minutes (FOMO). Topics Covered:
    • Raspberry PI basics
    • Sensor Basics
    • Using Python to read the sensors
    • Sending and receiving Tweets
    • ThingsSpeak — Your Internet of Things goto site


The files for the Minecraft Pi Programming API can be found here



Rube Goldberg Machines – Michelle Cook

What is a Rube Goldberg machine?  How does it ‘fit’ in the curriculum?  How can students become app smashers through completing a Rube Goldberg task?

We will explore how these machines meet not only STEM but the skills that are embedded in the curriculum as General capabilities, the design thinking process and encourages an innovator’s mindset not just a growth mindset.  An example of the realities and challenges will be discussed from the experience of using this fabulous STEM activity with a Year 4 class. 

Participants will be encouraged to have a go at creating their own simple Rube Goldberg machine.

 

Bottle Rockets – Kane Brown

Design, produce and launch bottle rockets to achieve a maximum velocity whilst travelling a maximum distance.

What angle will give the longest flight?
Do you need stabilisers?
Should I add nose weight?

This workshop will help you participate in the NSW Aeronautical Velocity Challenge 2017.
Rockets work by ejecting something out of the back and a so-called 'reaction force' then pushes the body of the rocket forward.

Here, water and air are shoved out the back. The water is heavier so that's what gives the bottle the main kick forwards.
The energy to force the water out is stored as air pressure inside the bottle. You supply the energy as you pump air into the bottle.

The air pressure inside builds up and pushes on the water. 
Once the friction force can no longer contain the pressure, the rocket is released and the pressure then acts on the water to eject it from the bottle.

Compared to the bottle, the water is heavy. So pushing water out at a moderate speed backwards gives the bottle a lot of forward speed.

Participants of this workshop will be bussed to St Patrick's Campbelltown to launch the Bottle Rockets.

YouTube Video

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