On Saturday the California Academy of Sciences hosted a successful “nature hacking” playshop on Saturday with Mitch Altman (pictured above) of the SF hacker space Noisebridge!
Fourteen awesome teens engaged in fun electronics hacking using the Arduino micro controller, LEDs, transistors, sensors, motors, and more. Mitch gave a quick and entertaining introduction to electronics and computing (which I actually learned a lot from). Then the kids got to play with the different electronics components and ask questions along the way. After lunch they put their newfound skills to the test by racing to complete a design challenge posed by one of the researchers on our current expedition to Madagascar.
It was cool seeing kids go from knowing almost nothing about hardware hacking to creating cool electronic devices that spin rotors, blink LEDs, and play songs when they sense heat, light or motion. Even cooler was seeing kids who had never worked together sharing knowledge and helping each other do fun things with Arduino.
Such a fun Saturday, and a great beginning to our teen "Playshops" that Digital Learning is organizing in 2015. We will be offering these playshops about one Saturday a month. Click on the link to find out more and sign up!