Earlier this month, we had a visit from real web developers from Noble Applications. I have included a link to their website here. Steve and Brandon brought an interesting new app that they have been working on for knee surgery patients. The kids were able to try out the sensors and see how their movement was recorded in the app. Steve and Brandon also answered many of the questions that the students had about what an average day was, their favorite parts of their job, and what sort of education they had to have to be a developer. We appreciate all the time and effort that Steve and Brandon gave us and hope they will join us again next year!
In class, we have been working on building apps in MIT App Inventor. We have worked on creating small apps with tutorials such as a drawing app called Paint Pot, and some larger apps using some code that was given to us such as the Germ Guide app. We learned the different between the Designer View, which shows us the user interface (what it would look like on our phone) and the Blocks View, which shows us the code. It has been a tough project, but I am super proud and impressed with the hard work that all of my students have done! They have struggled with some of the concepts, but are continuing to work and make progress!!!
With our day off added back in due to the snow days this winter, we took a day off from coding to practice the Engineering Design Process by building bridges in class. I had so much fun watching the students create, problem-solve and collaborate to build a bridge strong enough to hold a bucket of blocks. I have included some of the pictures from that day as well.
As always, please let me know what you have for questions! As we work through some of these projects, you may hear your student voice some frustration about the process. I have been reminding everyone that sometimes the most meaningful lessons we learn is when we fail, and that learning how to fail and try again, is the best lesson of all!
