Automatons for Little Hands

My teaching practice at The School at Columbia University has been an incredible experience so far! My supportive coop-teacher truly believes in letting students create and explore the technology independently, although some unit plans illustrate the tension between following constructivist instructional methods and keeping students safe. This recent unit (designed by the ingenious Gina Marcel) teaches second grade how to make automatons with basic materials. It's been an experiment in compromise between safety and independence, but so far it's been a blast!

Automatons (also pluralized as "automata", which happens to be the name of a recent Antonio Banderas thriller) are simply self-propelled machines. As a part of their larger "simple machines" unit, where students learn a little about acting forces and the distribution of weight, we asked students to create their own devices that would move in an automatic way with a little help from a human hand. The Exploratorium has great examples, and we decided to share these with the second graders to give them an idea of the project. With a few more videos and demonstrations, students could get a sense of the ways in which a small box can actually move itself -- force can be distributed or disrupted to make fun and surprising new movements!

This was my first time trying a hands on project where second-graders would be expected to use glue guns independently of any adult supervision - yikes! Before bringing out the big guns, Gina and I led the class through a discussion to create our own safety rules. We designed guidelines, consequences and partner protocols to make sure that students could keep each other safe. Right away, we had some fantastic experiences with students showing real respect for each other and the tools!

We gave students the freedom to construct their own individual pieces based on the brainstorming for automata designs, but most of them felt comfortable modeling their projects after a simpler "up and down, round and round" design. After laser-cutting a couple hundred pieces of cardboard at the TC Thingspace, my coop-teacher was ready to let them get started.

When dealing with a project like this, we really wanted to give students the freedom to work independently. It leads to a little bit of chaos (some glue here, some cardboard there) but our classroom management techniques saved the day. We made sure that students had a clear idea of what was expected for step 1, and our partnerships helped them keep each other in check with regards to their goals and behavior.

In the upcoming classes, students will get to the nitty gritty of creating their cams and fashioning their moving parts. It only gets more exciting from here!

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Update: After weeks of work, students finished just in time to take their automata home for break! It's been a great chance to work with Gina Marcel, guiding students through this building process. In the end, students had the chance to decorate their final pieces and write stories about what they mean. See below for some pictures of their final work!