{"id":12486,"date":"2016-04-27T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ttinvent.com\/?p=12486"},"modified":"2020-05-20T17:06:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T00:06:37","slug":"just-a-minute-my-brain-is-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/?p=12486","title":{"rendered":"Just a Minute, My Brain is on Fire!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A few weeks ago we finished our first Inventor Camp of the year.\u00a0 The first Inventor Camp of the year is always a little intense.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>I&#8217;m guilty of raising the level of the challenge yet again.\u00a0 Last year, we asked the students to do more complex wiring than we had in the past (see below for a description of the past few challenges).<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>This year I stretched the students yet a little further.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>During camp, a couple of students and I were having a conversation about binary and how bits can represent a byte and how that can be transmitted over a wire or through the air.\u00a0 The young lady then proceeded to show me how her program lit up 8 LEDs to represent a byte of ASCII data and what character she was currently displaying.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-12514\" src=\"http:\/\/ttinvent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px-350x350.png\" alt=\"Brain On Fire 01_750px\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px-350x350.png 350w, http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px-150x150.png 150w, http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px-624x624.png 624w, http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px-300x300.png 300w, http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/div>\n<div>I asked if they understood what they needed to do next, and the young gentleman next to her said,<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Yup.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll get to that in a minute&#8230;<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><strong>RIGHT NOW, MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE!&#8221;<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>I can appreciate how he felt.\u00a0 I had that same experience while I was talking to <strong>Peter Skillen<\/strong> during our podcast interview.\u00a0 Peter has been a forward thinking educator for years, and he&#8217;s still pushing people&#8217;s buttons and limits.\u00a0 If you need a little fire this week, subscribe and listen to his episode:<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/ttinvent.com\/?p=11716\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/InventingPodcast.com<\/a><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>Let&#8217;s light more imaginations on fire,<\/div>\n<div>Steve<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>PS &#8211; Here&#8217;s that little overview I promised of what we&#8217;ve done at Inventor Camp the past few years.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>In Year 1, the students used two sensors together with a good mechanical design to stop an intruder from taking a Top Secret device.\u00a0 They had to program the Arduino microprocessor to recognize the input from each sensor and interpret the signal to create an artificially intelligent security system.<\/li>\n<li>In Year 2, the students had to make one of the two sensors into a proximity alert and the other into a red alert.\u00a0 They had to program the Arduino microprocessor to recognize the input from each sensor and interpret the signal to create an artificially intelligent security system.<\/li>\n<li>In Year 3 (last year),the students connected an H-bridge amplifier between the Arduino microprocessor and a motor because the microprocessor has current-limited output.\u00a0 They also integrated one sensor as in past years to decide when to stop the motor.\u00a0 The challenge was to automatically lower a probe onto a comet without destroying the probe by crashing it into the surface.<\/li>\n<li>This Year, the students have 3 challenges that dovetail and require lots of teamwork (just as in the past).\u00a0 Because we don&#8217;t want to ruin the surprise, I can&#8217;t tell you exactly why they are doing the following tasks, but you can sign your kids up to find out!\n<ul>\n<li>The first challenge involves creating a wireless communication system using binary (the kids really DID understand the concepts&#8211;I was impressed).<\/li>\n<li>The second challenge involves a tight specification on a 3D design which is considerably harder than what we&#8217;ve asked in the past.\u00a0 The final 3D printed parts have to fit snugly into a complex figure, and I challenge a bachelor&#8217;s level mechanical engineering student to create a good design on the first try!<\/li>\n<li>The third challenge involves programming a small robot and designing a mechanical setup on the robot to retrieve an important payload.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>The kids totally stepped up to challenge this year.\u00a0 I am amazed at what they did.\u00a0 I&#8217;m amazed every year.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago we finished our first Inventor Camp of the year.\u00a0 The first Inventor Camp of the year is always a little intense. \u00a0 I&#8217;m guilty of raising the level of the challenge yet again.\u00a0 Last year, we &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/?p=12486\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Just a Minute, My Brain is on Fire!<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[833,337,389],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/BrainOnFire01_750px.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PzL0-3fo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12486"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15448,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions\/15448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}