Our Young ICT Explorer Teams this year are two groups working on the same problem – a problem that suits our context so it is meaningful for our learners – our STOP DROP GO Zone. This zone has clear rules but these are often broken – with people sitting for too long in their cars, getting out to collect children and often double parking. We had 6 students wishing to work on this problem so the groups initially explore the problem together, immersing themselves in what this looked like for our community and then split into two groups so they could deal with the different elements.
We have been amazingly lucky to be working with a ‘Code-The-Future’ volunteer – Geoff Cowell, who had managed to fit our needs in amongst his own as an Education student, to be able to support the students to go deeply into the project management of arduino programming. He was also tremendous at getting the students to have big dreams and to think broadly regarding possibilities for their solution. In the beginning brainstorming stage for example, he prompted the students to throw out any ideas – including those that may be deemed ridiculous in other situations. A major aspect of design thinking and project management is to be able to think in different ways at different stages of an inquiry or design process and his ability to do this and to choose the appropriate times to support alternate ways of thinking was impressive.
One group of students were assigned to collect data about the reality of the Stop Drop Go zone and to share this information with the other students. They then worked to represent this using a website and some infographics. They were frustrated at various blocks in their way in terms of data streaming and web hosting but persevered. Lately, their website has grown to include a coded animation of the problems.
The other group worked on a prototype of a solution to the Stop Drop Go Zone. This has included the use of an MBot and its associated coding on a path, the use of arduino coding with the matching sensors and the 3D printing of cases to hold the various devices.
The groups are still working but running out of time as they have their trip to Canberra in less than 5 days. It is exciting to see how these students have been able to identify a local problem and then go about using their skills to develop a solution. Much of this has stretched them but isn’t this what good learning is about – striving to leave their comfort zones in order to learn and to make progress, and in doing so, make an impact on themselves and the world around them.