What To Cover In a Short "DIY Tech" Course?

edumacator writes "Our school is working hard to provide our students with relevant opportunities of study. We have a short 'seminar' period that meets three days a week for thirty minutes. I've chosen to teach a seminar on 'Home Grown Technology' even though I'm an English teacher and only an amateur techie. If you had thirty minutes, three days a week, for nine weeks, what would you teach a group of high school students? I'm considering the Wii-mote smartboard and multitouch displays, but I'm afraid I'm overreaching."

A long-lasting technology

[davebarnes]

Morse Code.

Lego Mindstorms

[Ethanol-fueled]

Lego Mindstorms [wikipedia.org] would be a good, fun place to start.

Agriculture

[Anonymous Coward]

Crop agriculture, farm equipment repair, and irrigation systems.

Kroger is NOT the future.

Go with basics

[Hungus]

Go with basics: EM interference/signal crossover and Electrostatic Discharge. Each one can be taught in a 30 minutes session and would provide such a foundation to further lectures.

Designing and building

[wronski]

I'm sure there will be many interesting suggestions, but to me it would be preferable to focus on building simpler devices which the students design themselves, rather than something fancier that forces them to simply follow a blueprint (because they won't have the time/expertise to design it from scratch). Of course, there will be a continuum between 'built from scratch' and 'paint by numbers'-type projects, with different levels of student involvement in its design, and you'll have to find your balance.

Engineering! Fun and applicable!

[sh()gun]

I've always thought that teaching something that combined science, engineering, and Vo-Tek would be highly practical in high school.

How about Small Engines? You can buy a small lawnmower engine (and a manual) and teach them principles of mechanics and combustion while also levening parts of "how things work" as well as basic repair techniques. Eventually you put the thing back together and start it up. You can even show how to mess with it to trick it out or solve common problems.

Not only would this get kids interested in science and engineering, but it would be practical.

Linux installation

[masmullin]

rather useful skill... develops a desire to learn more about computers.

Digital Electronics.

[camperdave]

First I'd teach some basics: Ohm's law, serial/parallel circuits, etc. Then using a transistor as a switch to turn LEDs and/or relays on and off. Then build up some AND and OR gates, followed by some address decoding and control logic. Throw in some parallel port I/O stuff in as well.

DIY Tech?

[odin84gk]

This sounds a little broad. Are you looking at it from a hacker scene? Electronics and Mechanical building? Electrical, mechanical, and chemical technology?

Most of the projects posted on blog.makezine.com would be a good starting point. While the wii is cool, it only touches on a small number of technologies. I would recommend having a final project in mind, and developing the skills required to finish that final project. For example,

1.) Basic electronics (How to solder). Use a kit from ladyada or sparkfun.com. If you get a small enough kit, a beginner can solder a kit in less than 10 minutes. (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9206 might be fun). Addon: How to use a voltmeter
2.) Basic programming (Create a simple program on the PC).
3.) Basic woodworking: How to use a drill, saw, and other tools Safely.
4.) Basic Plastic/Metal working: Create a professionally looking project enclosure. (Look at the proper glues, cutting methods, tricks for a decent enclosure)
5.) Basic Chemistry: Creating a mold, possibly making gears for # 6
6.) Basic Mechanical: Creating a gearbox
7.) Basic Plumbing/hydrolics/pneumatics: How to get water/air from point A to point B
8.) ...

The best programs will have an end project in mind, such as a small car or an elaborate prank. Each step will be directly related to the final product, giving the students a purpose and motivation to do well.

Re:Teach 'em something useful

[yurtinus]

It's a do it yourself tech course in high school... It's not supposed to be useful, it's supposed to be fascinating and hopefully get a few students more interested in pursuing further. Leave the computer basics to a computer class (or hopefully their parents...). However, the basic electricity course you described looks like it would be dead on. I can't think how often I'd need to hand wind an electric motor ;)

You need to figure that you're teaching a high school class. You might have one or two students that are capable and motivated enough to get into complicated hacking and the rest that just want to get through the class. *Your* challenge is to come up with something that the majority of the class can accomplish while still allowing those handful of students to push further. I'd also argue that DIY Tech should have a stronger electronics background - most highschoolers wouldn't know how to use a multimeter... Digging into programming microcontrollers will be a stretch for a lot of your students at that grade (though admittedly I don't know what programming interfaces the devices mentioned use... If it's straightforward enough, go for it).

Re:Engineering! Fun and applicable!

[apoc.famine]

That's a damn good idea. Another one would be to teach nothing at all. Seriously.
 
There is sooooo much DYI tech that's been done floating around. Just expose them to it. HD video from the edge of space on a weather balloon. Multi-stage water-rockets which can go up 1km. Homebrew wifi antennas which can cover miles. Diesel-electric engines crammed into sedans. Ruben's tubes. Railguns.
 
Rather than teach, expose them. Show them what's been done. Challenge them to go beyond that. The point of DIY tech is it's...."do it YOURSELF!" It's not "have my teacher show me how to do it".
 
Seed their dreams, and let them figure the rest out.

MAKE

[anglophobe_0]

I would think a lot of the stuff from MAKE! Magazine would be useful.

Re:Teach them something useful

[URL Scruggs]

I strongly disagree. I think too many people are put off electronics by the utilitarianism, maths and feeling like they need to know something before they start. I would suggest circuit-bending, the skills can be picked up along the way and there isn't really knowledge threshold for starting. I think it's far better to teach people the principles of reverse engineering and give them an idea that they can just do things. Take away the scariness of opening the lids on stuff and it could lead to all sorts of creativity, ingenuity and so on - broader skills than repairing toasters.

Me too

[bussdriver]

Electronics. people don't know jack about electricity. could start as simple as static electricity and giving shocks to people. you could make a van-dagraph from junk.. old soap bottles with paper clips make nice capacitors. then work towards a simple circuit from scratch--- a motor might be a nice idea but a generator / motor would be better-- ties into the 'green' movement; they could power an LED from their hand-made generator and a simple prop placed on it.

Could mess with solar, but the cells cost and are ez to break.

I've seen plenty of "educational" kits out there for doing solar and mini wind generators-- both are jokes but get the point across. The kids are expensive and a WASTE of money because it takes the learning out of it-- those things are no better than assembling a model of something. Actually, assembling a model of something-- as dumb as it is-- does teach motor skills, patience, attention to detail, and spacial relations. My brother is a shop teacher and kids these days have a hard time doing a half decent job assembling simple plastic models -- in high school!

Re:Engineering! Fun and applicable!

[Selanit]

There is sooooo much DYI tech ..

Hmm, DYI. That stands for "Do Yourself In" ... ?

Re:A long-lasting technology

[QuixoticWonderer]

Clockwise has some GREAT ideas. The wiimote whiteboard is neat. I've done it myself. However, you should probably consider the scope and aim of what you are doing as well as what your students need. They likely will not really ever need to use the wiimote whiteboard whereas some of clockwise's ideas (such as storage v. memory, personal stuff online, backup up data, basic HTML) may be very useful to them some day.

Re:Improvisation?

[fractoid]

Agreed! Kind of like Junkyard Wars for kids. Get them to actually make something that does something.

I'd suggest going to a car scrapyard rather than pulling apart household appliances, though. The thought of a classroom full of kids doing 240V wiring (cmon, Real Men don't use 110V :P ) is kinda scary. Cars are full of fun things that run off 12v... and they even include the battery to run them!

how bad are kids now?

[falconwolf]

My brother is a shop teacher and kids these days have a hard time doing a half decent job assembling simple plastic models -- in high school!

This may be true, kids today may have trouble doing something we did growing up, but they have skills that didn't exist then. When I first got into computers microprocessors and microcomputers were only for hobbiest and were homebrews [wikipedia.org]. The kids today that are the age I was then can post their own websites, even if only on Facebook or Myspace. I used to be able to work on car engines and repair as well as rebuild them, but now I wouldn't try to work on the engine in my car without first taking a class on repairing engines.

Falcon