Greenbush Labs

A Rant on Creating Student “Consumers”

admin — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:47:54 +0000

Of everything Ive experienced, read, and seen over my many years of teaching kids to “Create and Share Their Ideas with Technology” I really worry that most kids today will be great consumers but have no idea how any of their day to day technology actually WORKS …. the technology school are embracing more and more are very “consumer centric” (God bless Ipads, but they are definitely contributing to this dilemma at the moment) and terribly ”un-creator centric” ! …. And Its evolving SO FAST …. That coupled with the projected shortages of computer scientist over the next 10 years (The US alone is projected to have a shortage of 1.5 million computer scientists by 2020) its my belief we have somehow got to allow kids to acquire the taste for “creating with technology” in a fun and non intimidating way at a relatively young age. With those ideas in mind I believe Scratch story & game development, Hummingbird Robotics programming & programmable art (and Arduino when the kids are a bit older), and Finch programming (on a robotics game board) are wonder first steps in helping kids become “Technology Creators” rather than passive technology consumers … There is so much we can do to give kids the taste of creating with technology, and give them the skills to become great technology thinkers !

Hosted SNAP & ThreeJS Services

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:40:50 +0000

I will be showing the kids creation tools and our modifications to the above tools over the summer:

SNAP (with GreenbushLabs storage)!

http://www.greenbushlabs.com/GBsnap/snap.html

ThreeJS (with GreenbushLabs storage)!

http://www.greenbushlabs.com/ThreeJS/examples

Haptics on the direct manipulation & natural input surface – From Nov. 2006

admin — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:46:38 +0000

A blast from the past … A re-post of my Nov. 2006 post on the future 3D direct manipulation on interactive surfaces and haptics.
http://blog.greenbushlabs.com/?p=159

As you may be aware of my interest in natural input and the direct maipulation of virtual objects in education by my work with the Edusim project (http://edusim3d.com). Natural input is the concept of using natural type of movements to interact with digital devices. Direct manipulation is the concept of moving, creating and manipulating virtual objects with your hands. Another interest of mine is stereographics, making objects on a surface appear to “stick out” by the use of red/blue shading and red/blue glasses. In the future combined with nono-technology the screens could perhaps react with physical textures… but until then, we have haptics. As described here – [tinyurl.com] (at computerworld.com).

Haptics is essentially a device that reacts to the input you give it:

When playing Halo 3 on your Xbox 360, or other games on other consoles, your handheld game controller shakes and rumbles to coincide with on-screen explosions, crashes, gunshots and grenade detonations.

It’s called haptics, or force feedback. In gaming and virtual reality, haptics boost realism by adding a third sense — touch — to augment vision and hearing.

A new generation of cell phones, as well as other gadgets, is introducing haptics. The purpose isn’t to add realism, but to provide psychologically satisfying information about precisely when a button is pushed.
I can envision a surface in the future using an Edusim type of system in the school environment with not only direct manipulation, natural input, and stereographics, but also haptics to provide the little extra bit of information the student might respond to !

What Most Schools Dont Teach – Code.org

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:32:09 +0000

Having preached this message for many years, I was thrilled to see this video !

code.org

Obama Endorses Programming Classes in High School

admin — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:24:24 +0000

The President has recently endorsed not only 3D printing technology in the latest state of the union address, but also is seen here in a Google Hangout endorsing a computer programming language for high school students.

Scratch 2.0 Beta is available to the public !

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:32:36 +0000

… Go play !
http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/

Reading, Writing, and Programming: Mitch Resnick at TEDxBeaconStreet

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:37:27 +0000

Steve Jobs on Making :: Scratch :: Khan CS :: Hummingbird Kits

admin — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:27:13 +0000

Presentation Slides

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/About_Scratch

http://www.khanacademy.org/cs

http://www.hummingbirdkit.com

From Scratch Game Builders to the Hummingbird Programmable Collage

admin — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:21:57 +0000

From Scratch Game Builders to the Hummingbird Programmable Collage

Scratch

Snap & the Hummingbird Kit

Hummingbird Robotics & the “Programmable Collage” Project Planning

admin — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:53:50 +0000

SketchFab Puts 3D in your Browser

admin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:49:39 +0000

SketchFab Puts 3D in your Browser, and on a Smartboard or interactive surface provides and Edusim & 3D immersive touch like experience !

… Load it on your Smartboard & play !

Hummingbird Labs Robotics

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:48:43 +0000

I seen the Hummingbird Labs demo, its a very very new approach to
robotics & “electronic textiles” -
http://www.hummingbirdkit.com/?q=content/example-robots … its very
cool because it can be programmed with Snap (an iteration of the
Scratch visual programming environment) … its more expensive ($199
for one kit but has 3 motors, 5 sensors, & 5 LEDs ! ! !) than the Lego
WeDo ($120 but only has one motor & 2 sensors) kit but has been
deployed in several pilot studies to get and keep girls interested in
robotics, electronics, & programming because it has a “crafty”
approach to projects that girls (in studies) tend find more
interesting.

It reminds me a lot of the Arduino, except a more polished version …
I am tempted to suggest this could absolutely swap out any Mindstorm
or WeDo exercises we might imagine because of its relative “Low floor
& High Ceiling” to using it and creating projects with it.

If you woud be interested in any student projects that a tool like
this may offer I would love to explore the idea with you.

A Processing Sketch from Openprocessing.org

admin — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:59:24 +0000

One of my favorites:

I Do NUI ! …. Edusim and the Natural User Interface

admin — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:36:21 +0000

My Natural User Interface credentials go back a ways with Edusim & the 3D/Interactive Surface work, back to 2007 to be exact. I am always excited when I see this field evolve ! The Leap Motion Sensor is nothing extremely new to those in the NUI field … what is new is the $70 price point and what appears to be very precise finger tracking …. This will bring natural 3D virtual object interaction a long ways in the coming years !

Games for Improving the World !

admin — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:31:08 +0000

just a few to get you thinking !

FoldIt – http://fold.it
&
EteRNA – http://eterna.cmu.edu

SparkTruck – Taking STEM to Schools & Creating Makers !

admin — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 05:12:28 +0000

One survey of student attitudes towards STEM found that “it is almost universal that mathematics and science is seen as boring and not related to real life” – Enter SparkTruck

One longitudinal study
found that SparkTruck experience with high school scientific research bumped the actual decision to choose a career in science about 13%. SparkTruck is only an afternoon with some fun tools. So, as far as workable solutions go, it’s a relatively solid (and inexpensive) solution.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/04/sparktruck-is-a-force-for-stem-education-on-wheels

TinkerCad – My IPad Stand

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:33:16 +0000

“Tinkering” with TinkerCad & mad a simple IPad stand in a matter of minutes … tinkercad has come a long way in the past few months ! I can even embed the model & upload to Thingieverse !

Grab it from Thingiverse

GreenbushLabs on Leadership

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:22:18 +0000

“A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible.” ~ Mark Yarnell

“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” ~ John Maxwell

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ~ John Quincy Adams

“When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” ~ Lao Tzu

“A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” ~ David R. Gergen

“Eagles don’t flock – you have to find them one at a time.” ~ H. Ross Perot

How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:55:29 +0000

How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination

TinkerCad – create 3D objects, then 3D print them ! !

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:11:32 +0000