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I made a genre selector for students who are struggling to decide what type of book they want to read.

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Here is the Trait picker

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I am planning on introducing Hummingbirds as part of one of my ice breakers during the 1st 5 days of school. I was looking over all the ideas and settled on Art Dioramas. This will bring all the STEAM elements together and I am thinking it will set the tone for the year. It will be a good simple first project, and then I can build on the basics throughout the year. We will do a robot petting zoo in February and wrap up the year after testing with mini-golf.

This year we are also studying energy. Where possible, I want to incorporate our prior learning back to our Hummingbird projects and help students understand not just what they can do with the engineering kits, but how they operate.

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Dolphin

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My nephew and I worked on this project together. We had so much fun playing while imagining and reimagining the crab! We started off with the idea that the crab was just going about his business and would get startled by someone coming near. Then we added on the idea that he would get "crabby" and his eyes would turn red to show he was getting annoyed that someone was bothering him! I loved how my nephew naturally incorporated storytelling into the robot creation!

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Each year, after learning about plant structures and adaptations, the students select a biome to research and then design and build a plant with adaptations that will help it survive in its biome. There are always a few students who have a hard time settling on a specific biome, so I can see where using the picker could be a big help! I'd also love to have them try incorporating the servos to include some type of movement in their plant as an adaptation ex. a flower that opens when the plant senses light or a plant that retracts its berries when it senses a predator is near.

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Not sure what to do at recess? Or <GASP!> you and your friend can't agree about what to do? Try the Activity Picker!

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I would use this picker with my fourth graders to have them modify their LEGO projects by adding one simple machine from our simple machine unit.

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For the Birthday Spinner, students would get to choose their birthday activity of choice! Very fun and I'm sure they'll look forward to it!

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Quick Date Night spinner!

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My 1 year old son and I have spent nearly all summer playing on our deck. We have a few butterfly bushes in the backyard so we are always butterfly watching! We get to see all kinds of pretty butterflies. I also have a tattoo of a butterfly- I’ve always loved them.

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This is a blackberry La Croix butterfly. When searching for a flower, and happily flaps its wings when it’s found one! I opted for the packaging because it’s already decorated cardboard, which I usually keep a lot of for projects with our younger students and students who may not have a lot of time to add the aesthetics to their projects.

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The Hummingbird kit aligns quite well with a project based science project similar to the animal picker project.

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Mariposa 🦋: Animal Fact Picker in Spanish

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Code:

https://makecode.microbit.org/_dp0dsAFRz2hd

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Made with ❤️ in Microsoft MakeCode for micro:bit.

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As an instructional coach, it will depend on what teacher/grade I’m using this with, but I could get to know the students first with an about me question picker, then pop the circle off and put one on with questions to introduce the topic of what we’ll be building with the Hummingbird kits in that class. Since teachers don’t tend to have “extra” time for things like this, my goal would be to align the project to a standard they are working on that they’d like to be more engaging for students - most likely a science standard since those are new to teachers this year but they don’t have a resource yet. So excited for this opportunity! My district has 12 kits per elementary school so I’ll definitely be able to use these with teachers!

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This is a Friday night family movie picker! Of course it landed on K-Pop Demon Hunters 🙄

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My 11 year old and I had fun with play in designing the alligator. Honestly, other than the design of the eyes and tail, the rest of the alligator came first! Then we figured out what to make come alive.

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My 11 year old and I created an alligator. When left alone, his eyes glow green and he is still. When you get too close, his eyes turn red and he swats his tail back and forth.

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I had to recall angles with the position servo to determine why it was going too far, thinking about a protractor. I also had to think about materials to keep everything in place! Definitely made my brain work and will make our students have to consider application of geometry.

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I created a frog and figured out how to use the play sound block and record myself making a frog sound, though it is faint in the background.

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My dog that passed away a few years ago, Xavier, was a Collie so I created a memory of him wagging his tail and his heart lighting up as he was always so loving!

Need to work on the tail wagging part haha.

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Pollinator Seed Picker- What should you plant today?

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Pollinator Seed Picker- What should you plant today?

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I have 4 units, multiple sessions each. I am planning for the year. I arranged to check out the district kit for the year. Since I have 29-9/10 year olds this year we are going to take things slow and steady. We are going to start the year with an energy science unit and I will introduce the Hummingbird first as wiring device. We will take what we learn from paper circuits and add onto this with our use of the 'birdbrain'. Unit 2 will focus on programming basics, Unit 3, building an interactive diorama, and finally end the year with the mini-golf unit.

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What is the question to the answer?

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Oyster in dirty water opens when waved at, turns water clean (blue) and then closes. I need to slow down timing and clean up the water when I get to better materials. The soft air dry clay worked well for decorating.

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I have the picker pick the food that the pig I created in session B would want to be fed.

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I made a pig that you can pick food out to feed and then it wags it's tail.

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Beth Smith

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Introductions for the beginning of the school year. 

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I had fun creating something practical for our house. The question, what's for dinner? is discussed everday. In my classroom, I could change my topic to what classroom reward would we want for meeting specific goals.

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Meet Melman my giraffe. Hiding the wires was the most difficult piece since he has such a long neck and the wires are not that long. Leaving the lid to the box removable made it easy to hide the hummingbird. My favorite part is his tail made out of a bag handle and leftover party decor.

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This is Responsum. She is great at giving advice or helping you realize where to go for the answer. She is not a fortune teller, just a wise animal you can't find in a zoo but can go to for advice! Make sure you speak clearly and slowly and then remove your palm so she can reveal her answer!

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1. My favorite part was the mess- I love messy work! There were scraps of cardboard and construction paper all over the place. My inspiration is always one of my dogs, so Cassie got her turn today.

2. The hardest part was adjusting the degrees on the position motor. I ended up gluing the tail on and repositioning the attachment on the motor. That was just the fastest way to make sure the tail was positioned and wagged the way I wanted. The cup also rocked when the tail wagged so I added some weights to it to stabilize it.

3. I learned how to use the light sensor, and learned how to note the threshold properly.

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This is my Cretan Hound, Cassie who LOVES carrots! I had to add weights to the inside of the cup to keep it from rocking on the table when the tag wags.

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This animal likes to be fed cell phones at night so kids can sleep peacefully without blue lights and social media :-)! Look how happy she is when she gets a cellphone!

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Play came in just in the making. I went with a piñata style animal, what could be more playful. From the colors to the style, I think that's where my mind was the whole time.

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I wanted a hanging animal. I didn't think about where I would place the hummingbird. Next time I will make the animal big enough to place it inside. The bird uses a sound sensor which controls both the wings and the head's lights.

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Here is my memory of my daughter falling in love with the goldendoodle that became a part of our family!

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This project made me think about how I could introduce angles to my students. I am also thinking about ways that they can share the resources.

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I modified the open and closing of tahe mouth by hot gluing a paperclip to a pinhole in the cardboard. I then attached the other end of the clip to one of tyhe holes in the arm of the servo.

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I definitely want to use the RPZ project and integrate with both ELA and Math. At the end of the year, students already make a "volume animal" using boxes and figuring out its total volume (they're huge). They also do a call to action project in ELA. It would be fun to do an endangered animal to create, do a call to action, and then make it robotic!

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Where should we go out spinner project...

not RPZ related but a common issue in our house lol

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I spent a LOT of time "playing" and figuring out how to use the piston mechanism for my turtle head. Then my kids had so much fun playing by decorating the turtle!

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This is definitely an imperfect project but it has two LED eyes and its front two fins move on a rotation servo. Then there is a light sensor that sets off a piston mechanism so the turtle pokes its head out. My 6 and 4 year old helped me decorate it :)

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B. Collins-This is a way for students to share about their ecosystem projects that we do each year.

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I made a sea turtle and play was definitely involved in the process. Using my imagination to "play" with all of the different sensors, LEDs and motors to see what would make it a fun robot for others was the best part of the project.

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Not very pretty Hammerhead shark. Def need to work on the size of the paperclip and degrees of movement.

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I will use the hummingbird for a human body museum. Each group will research a human body system. Their project must be interative and show how at least two human systems interact with each. For example, when the hand touches fire, the hand retreats. The servo can be used to move the hand and the brain can light up showing although the response is automatic, it is still controlled by the brain.

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This is a picker for both of my pandas.

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My son made a family movie picker

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K. Hillman

Red Panda loves bamboo. It will wag its tail if you feed it bamboo. I printed out fur patterns and cut them out to form a red panda. Then I clued them together. I used a toilet paper roll for its mouth. The base is a box to hold all the hardwares. I had trouble getting the rotation motor to work. I find that starting a new project on makecode solves a lot of my problems, especially when my perfectly good code stacks don't work.

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This panda can move its arms and neck. When it waves the bamboo in its face its necklace lights up because its eye sense distance. Coming up with an animal and design was hard. Placing hardware in the right place was hard. Coding was also hard because I kept on forgetting to download after I made changes on makecode. Thank you. Kelly Hillman

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We are going to expand on our minigolf and add a petting zoo this school year.

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What's for Dinner

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I feel like as an adult "play" is something we don't have a lot of time for in life but we need to make time for it. I enjoyed "playing" with my design and making. It was fun to be creative but also hard because we don't do this a lot in life.

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Silly 🐶

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Water Ecosystem Project Picker

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I had fun making this with my son. It was good father-son playtime!

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We just got back from a cruise to Atlantis in the Bahamas where we got to pet the stingrays!

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My favorite part of the project was coding. Coding is definitely in my comfort zone because it is one of my strengths. I felt most confident here.

The hardest part (where I felt least confident) was designing the feedable animal. I'm not an artist; so making an animal was definitely outside my comfort zone - - but my cat didn't turn out too bad :)

What I learned is that you don't have to be an amazing artist to make a feedable robot. If you can make something that resembles an animal, that's good! Your animal doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to work!

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If I can acquire more Hummingbird sets, I would love to partner with the Library Media Specialist to co-plan an animal research project and Hummingbird petting zoo project.

I also love the mini golf course idea. I think it would be great for our spring Celebration of Learning!

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I made an animal fact picker and included a flashing tri color led light. Here is the link to my code: https://makecode.microbit.org/_5bdiPucumayA

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Animal Question Picker- A way for students to share about what they learned about their animal. What it eats, where it lives, cool fact or is it endangered or threatened.

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Why are cassowaries so awesome? There's so many answers to choose from!

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Pet emotion picker

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I plan to use the Hummingbird robotics kit in our human body systems unit to give students a hands-on, project-based learning experience they’ll remember. I’d also love for older students to create interactive exhibits, like a petting zoo or historical walk, for younger students to explore. Having students teach others not only deepens their understanding but also helps them develop important soft skills for the future.

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This was fun

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Each year our school does a school-wide PBL. This year, we are changing the format and each grade level is responsible for their own PBL. So, I'm excited to collaborate with the various grade levels to bring some robotic elements to whatever topic they choose for their PBL.

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I have two major things I am wanting to do If I can get more sets. I want to have my younger grades integrate this into what they do when they learn about animals and ecosystems. In my upper grades I want them to create a putt putt course with a moveable object.

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We started using hummingbird kits for GT kids last year. This year we will be expanding and doing a full robot petting zoo for our STEM Showcase! I’m excited to see their creativity come to life!!

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Cutest cat in the house

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Spin and learn!

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Here is my classroom reward wheel!

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Where are we going?

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This will give students a chance to reflect and learn about the project through different platforms of information

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To help me pick what room to clean (or what projects to work on lol).

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I love the idea of having the picker choose what they have to tell. However, here I made a picker that would help narrow down what animal they can choose based on its ecosystem.

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Favorite: The whole concept of using sensor to move an animal body part. For mine, I fed the dog a bone, and its tail moved.

Hardest: My house has low level light so trying to figure out the number to trigger the sensor was tricky.

Learned: Everything because I am such a beginner. The whole coding process is such a new language for me! Thank you!

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I just love the whole unit of animals. Ideas are endless. Students can research about animals and then creating them through cardboard and figuring out how to move body parts and incorporating lights and sensors.

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I made a turtle. It was more fun than I thought it would be. I had fun trying to figure out how to make the turtle move and to think about how I would translate this activity to my students. I enjoyed it enough I made my adult children watch my finished project.

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Play factored into my learning while making this project through picking an animal and then figuring out what part of the chosen animal will move and deciding through what type of sensor. That was fun!

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Play factored in because I literally felt like a kid who was playing. I think penguins are so fun and playful! So it was nice to use play while designing my penguin robot

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I love my cow! I'm so pumped! I definitely enjoyed playing with the creation of this project...and with building the code. There was less frustration when coding this project which was very nice!

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There's definitely engagement either in building, designing or coding. I can see different students working together depending on their strengths.

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This was challenging for me in multiple ways. I have a hard time coming up with the idea. So I watched a bunch of videos about RPZ on youtube. Still stuck, then my son sent me a meme and I thought I could do that. I made the creature and then started to code and couldn't get it to do what I wanted. Broke it down to testing each component. Then I tried to find last session's video to work through that again.

I need to get faster about this whole thing to make it more automatic instead of struggle.

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I know I was playing because I was creating. I love to play around with new creations and see how crafty I can get!

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I had a lot of fun making this project, and it almost took me back to thinking like a kid would. Trying to make a "cute" animal while also using what I already knew about how animals behave. I thought about what a cat might do if a stranger tried to pet it and then came up with ways to reflect that in my robot animal.

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This was fun!

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Got stuck with what I wanted to make. Ironically my son sent me a picture that looked like this so I made it. Unfortunately, I have not been successful in coding it. Wanted it to eat a fish and wave the large tale.

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Explain your project.

1. My project is a sloth- that I wanted to create  to see if I could make something that could be fed and moved. I wanted to also see if I could get this project to hang from a tree limb, but haven't figured that out thus far because of the moving part.

What was your favorite part of working on this project?

1. My favorite part was the overall creation of the animal itself… seeing what I could make out of recyclables.

What was the hardest part of working on this project?

1. The hardest part was the light sensor, wherever I moved the creation in the room, the coding had to be changed to suit the lighting sources.

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Favorite: getting the dog to wag his tail.

Hardest: getting the sensor to work inside the cup.

Try: would love to see the creativity of the kids in making the pets.

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Just playing with 3 lights, position and rotation. Toying around with connecting this trio for inspiration to use with my ELA or Social Studies lessons.

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This project made me think about all the variable topics/ranges of interest that students could work with to feel ownership and pride, all while exploring and being curious