Personal Retrospective

Personal Retrospective at the end of Makerspace

• What was the build that you are most proud of and why?

I am really proud of both the digital dice and my final build. Both of these projects pushed my programming and coding limits beyond what I have used for a number of years. I have enjoyed programming, but since I took my current teaching job I teach pretty much the same coding lessons every year and they don't go very deep. These activities let me try out some coding skills beyond what I teach to my students on an annual basis. 

• Go back to your first week and read each week’s submission with an eye for personal growth. Where were you when you started and where did you end up?

To be honest the first couple of weeks were pretty boring for me, which is why I tried to spice it up by adding in the RGB or the other extension projects. The initial LED projects are almost identical to what I teach my students so I already know most of the ins-and-outs around those projects. This caused my blogs to be rushed and my documentation to be limited as I was so comfortable with the content. Towards the end of the course I became more diligent in my documenting at least in part because I had to organize and think through the project myself. 

• What did you learn that you didn’t know before?

I learned the specifics of how to code an arduino. I found that it codes very similarly to the robotic systems that I team my students on. This is particularly nice as I think towards the Senior Capstones that I have mentioned in class before. Many students choose to utilize arduinos for their projects and I am a little more confident knowing that the arduino coding is just a small step away from what they already do in my classes. 

• How did you actually come to learn this new knowledge?

I picked up on this fact pretty early on in the course. After I downloaded the first sample code I instantly began to recognize the structure of programming from the system I am used to teaching. The specific commands like pinMode were different, but the overall structure was nearly the same. I also recreated a few of my in-class projects and I found that all I had to do was translate a #pragma statement into a pinMode, change a wait(1) into a delay(1000). After I recognized this I was able to think in terms of the programming language I learned first and just translate into the arudino language. 

• What did you learn about yourself?

I learned that my classroom and school are already kind of set-up like a makerspace. I had never thought of my school being a makerspace, rather I identified with senior capstone projects. I also picked up that a Makerspace is just as much how you portray it as the actual equipment and projects that you complete. Knowing this I can make a more concerted effort to connect the work my students do in my classes as pertaining to the maker movement. 

• Look at your words for each week and see how they might read if one of your students turned in that submission. What were you telling yourself about yourself?

I stuck predominately to the technical information in my documentation. I walkthrough my project and my code. I identify times when the projects didn't work and the potential solutions that I tried. I don't include much emotion or frustration, partly because I don't get frustrated that easily. Though also coming from a background in science I have pick up the tone of academic writing that is usually very matter-of-fact. To be honest, this is exactly what I want from my students: a detailed description of the project, how they accomplished it, challenges they faced, but presenting it all in a straightforward and concise manner. 

• Where did you say your challenges where?

Having done a bunch of robotics and programming, many of the challenges I faced I didn't document. I applied my debugging and troubleshooting skills, identified the issue and moved on with the project. I documented a few of the key errors that I made, especially those that I did not know how to fix on the onset. In part, being more familiar with coding, I choose to focus on errors that I anticipate other people would encounter so that I could serve as a learning tool for them. 

• Did these challenges change over the time of the class?

The challenges did change over the course of the class, mainly in regards to equipment challenges. At the onset using LEDs I faced almost no challenge at all, but by the time I got to using relays and motors the equipment was new for me. This novelty proved challenging, in particular with the motor, where I was not able to use it because I could not get it to work. Perhaps this was an equipment error in that I did not know how to use it properly or it could be an error in my code. Either way, new equipment always poses a challenge at first. 

• As you entered the world of the maker, what do you see as your next adventure in the world of making? Is it to expand your abilities to work with microprocessor and move from prototype to the production of something fun and useful? Is it to see what you can learn about the world of 3D design and printing? Is it to see what aspects of making can be used with the younger children? It is to see what you need to do to bring your vision of a maker space to life in the real world? It can be anything.

My first goal is to better train and mentor my students throughout their senior capstone projects. Having a better knowledge of arduinos I can directly serve students who seek to utilize them. Additionally, I want to improve my documentation skills for these projects. The last couple of years I have informally documented the projects, but I do not have them in an easily accessible and deliverable format. I want to take the documenting skills I have learned and use it to organize these projects, especially so that future students and community members can see the cool projects my students complete. 

• What are your next steps?

I kind of mentioned this in the previous answer. I want to better document and guide my students' senior capstone projects. In particular I want to set-up a binder where each student creates a 1-page bio about themselves and their project. I want to learn about websites and QR codes so that students can link videos of their projects onto these bios. This will allow for many students and community members to experience the work my students complete.