Communication ECA Phase III Class 1: Hand Generator 20180307

Phase III is the highest level of class in Play2Learn Education Lego Challenge Program. In the next 8 weeks, different energy form transformations will be discussed including energy experiments between kinematic energy and potential energy, electrical energy and kinematic energy, heat (light) energy and electrical energy.

The class started with the explanation of the basic skills to use the power meter and motors. The class follows with building a hand generator that transfers kinematic energy to electrical energy. The kinematic energy is generated by the students’ hand. The generated energy was stored in the power meter. The class was intense because the students need to learn the principle model knowledge and finish the hand generator model building. However, after the first class, they gained a good understanding of the power meter and motors which laid a solid ground for the following classes.

Communication ECA Phase II Class 1: LEGO Digital Designer: Screw 20180307

Phase II is the middle-level class of Play2Learn Education Lego Challenge Program. In the next 8 weeks, the students will have good opportunities to learn and practice the basic mechanical mechanisms including lever, wheel and axle, pulley, wedge and screw.

We started the Phase II by the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) class. The main reason is we would like to teach the student the skills to use the LDD so they can have more time to do their own Lego designs. The LDD program allows users to build models using virtual Lego bricks, in a computer-aided design like manner. We taught the students the basic skills to use LDD, such as how to pick parts, how to save the file, how to rotate part, etc. The students get familiar enough with it after some instructions and practice. They were then requested to build a screw model in LDD following a step by step booklet. The STEM information behind this section is the computer-aided designs, which is common in industry designs every day. All students got a good practice with LDD, and they were ready to design their customized models.

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