Tech 101 Kids Presentation at Jefferson Elementary School

On March 25th, I gave a presentation to 55 5th graders at Jefferson Elementary School. I felt great pride in being able to go back and present to the kids to get them excited about tech.

I began the presentation with and introduction of who I was and how I went to Jefferson. I showed pictures of me as a kids building my first robots made out of LEGO using a LEGO Mindstorms kit. Then I showed pictures of how my robots got progressively more advanced over time, all the way up until now that I was in college.

Then I did a few creative exercises to get the kids starting to think outside of the box, or, as we like to do at Tech 101 Kids, not just “think outside of the box” but “cut open the box and make a space ship”.

I then introduced the MaKey MaKey. What’s that? It’s a circuit board that can plug into any conductible object and turn it into a keyboard. So you could plug it into a bunch of bananas and turn them into a piano, or make a video game controller out of play-doh. The possibilities are endless.

I pulled out a blue gardening glove and put it over one hand.

“This is my newest invention,” I told the kids. “It’s a glove and each finger is a different key. By touching my thumb to my fingers I can control the arrow keys on my computer.”

I then pulled up Pac-Man and began playing it on the screen. I touched my thumb against my fingers to move Pac-Man in different directions. The kids laughed and cheered for Pac-Man, but were also in awe about how I was controlling him using just my glove.

“You see,” I said, “Each of the fingertips on this glove is wrapped in aluminum with a wire going down the back of the glove like veins. These wires go back to the MaKey MaKey. Each of my fingers is connected to a different key. My thumb is connected to the ground wire so I can use my thumb to pick a key and move Pac-Man around.”

The kids were super excited and could watch me use this glove to play Pac-Man all day, but I moved onto my next goodies: Rubik’s Cubes. I pulled a bunch of them out. We had 3×3 cubes, 4×4 cubes, 2×2 cubes, and even 5×5 cubes. We even had a pyramid Rubik’s Cube, a mirror Rubik’s Cube, and some weird shape thing cube. So many cubes.

I help up the Rubik’s Cubes for the kids to see. “In our past workshops, we taught kids your age how to solve Rubik’s Cubes. It’s really just memorizing patterns. Now these kids, including my own little brothers, can solve Rubik’s Cubes in under two minutes.”

It’s really an amazing thing, seeing a puzzle that even baffles adults being solved by little kids. The kind of motivation a kid gets from being able to do something as “wow” and impressive as solving a Rubik’s Cube is enough to get them to want to do more STEM stuff, which is why we always do Rubik’s Cubes in our presentations and workshops.

After the Rubik’s Cube, I presented the Horizon Fuel Cell Car. To power the toy car, you pour water into the beakers on the car’s back and connect a battery to it. Then the battery runs a current through the water and splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen collects in the fuel cell and powers the toy car on it’s own without the battery.

I placed the car on the table, filled it up with water, let it sit for a few seconds then let it go. The car sprung to life and drove around in circles while lighting up all over with blue flashing lights. The kids were awed, and you best believe these kids are now super excited in learning more about fuel cells.

I really felt the presentation ended a success. The kids loved all the projects I presented but more importantly they got excited about technology. What I showed them wasn’t just new toys to play with, it was tools to start thinking outside of the box. When kids start playing with circuit boards that can turn anything into a keyboard or with toy cars powered by water, it expands their perceptions about the world around them and challenges them to question their assumptions on the rules about the world around them. And for kids, as we all know, it’s really fun to go and break the rules.