Not quite what any of us had in mind for Tech Terrors last week but I do have to say I was rather pleased to hear how many Terrors actually voiced their regrets at missing it!
I spent some time digging up (after digging out) a few, fun, Winter Tech related things I’ll share as I’m currently in the process of making another of my STEAM inspiration vids…the first was on Fire Fighting Tech if you want to see that:
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There was a surprisingly interesting article in Wired about the crazy amount of work and organization required to keep airports running in our miserable snowy weather… something that concerned me as my wife was flying back from Berlin.
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/takes-crazy-effort-clear-snow-airport-runways/
I had always assumed that runways were heated…but it turns out that the vast majority aren’t…but that may be changing:
And we may need more heated landings by the sound of it…given all the new air traffic companies like Uber may be creating:h
And when you start looking you’ll find there’s are more than one way to shovel a drive with robots…in fact they have a competition!:
https://youtu.be/njW7mBH0ORQ
Robo-Snowplow…Now there’s a project for the Terrors…and a great way to save my back!
But I digress…Now, it’s this week!
I staggered into the Terror’s lair with a simpler plan…Tech Autopsies and Robots…while the Mad Modders PC crew finished up the rebuild of their complete PC teardown…yep, these kids were born to mod (modding computers is like customizing cars…only with computers…so WAY cooler! 😉 They have one more fan to install and they’re up and running…I even saw the system boot…looking forward to hearing more about that!
YouTube Gaming Guru “Video” Vida was down two of his Terrors but he’s looking forward to some actual game and commentary recording next week, I believe?
We all wanted see the school tour video that will be showing off Frankland to another school in Africa, so we got that running on the magic whiteboard…nice work ladies…filming, hosting, editing and all!
I started the class by asking if anyone had any interest in figuring out something Tech Terror-y to do with the Frankland plant drive…I had brought in a few clippings that I planted in old Nespresso capsules (the coffee grounds have made a great starter soil for seeds in the past…plus I hate wasting all those little aluminium things.) A few of the Terrors really ran with it…designing a tree with 3d printed holders and a series of straws to water them…I even got a list of required supplies! I’m going to try to decipher the plans and have something for them to work with next week!
I also had a little gaggle of Terrors who were quite captivated by the CO2 sensor setup I brought in…and how the levels had jumped since before they’d arrived and filled the room with their collective lunch breath…they were also surprised that breathing on the sensor had such a small effect on the readings. The sensor is a neat little kit from my favourite Canadian charity, Let’s Talk Science which they created for their LivingSpace action project in conjunction with the Canadian Space Agency and the International Space Station…Frankland may already be using some of these…but if not they should be!:
The Tech autopsies stole the show this week with just about every terror having torn something to pieces by the end of our session. Surprise to me was that I didn’t have a single taker on wiring up the Tech Terror robot army?! So, I’m going to take a different approach and have them wired up and ready for the Terrors next week…see if the they are more interested once they can make them walk, talk, do push ups, sing and dance…via some simple scratch programming!