Raffles Institution
Coding and Making

Scouts from Raffles Institution, a top Singapore school, challenged their creativity with Coding + Making while exploring endangered World Wildlife species. I teamed up with coding education provider Tinkercademy , to provide four workshops of STEAM hands-on Micro:bit coding and Making workshop to fifty two fabulous Scouts. This experience was a perfect trans-disciplinary blend of conceptual learning, engaging practical skills, inspiring creativity, collaborative soft skills and sharing.

Workshop Theme: The theme was "Breathe Life into Everyday Objects". I expanded the concept of "Life" to focus on endangered species. To make it more fun for these middle schoolers, I added the twist of having them imagine that somewhere in the universe there were magical creatures that were a combination of two animals. In this case, inspiration was found on the World Wildlife endangered species list. They quickly sprung into action with lots of research, sketching and prototyping before actual hands-on creation began using everday recyclables.

Group Dynamics: During specialized workshops for Coding and Making basics, the large group of fifty two, was split into two Teams, each representing land or sea animals. Within each larger Team, I also created 5 Sub-Teams so participants could have fun working together collaboratively.

When it came time to manifesting their new knowledge into magical projects, the school provided a large space for all to come together to create!

Micro:bit Coding: Tinkercademy provided all the latest electronic components and accessories for instruction of basic coding and operation of the Micro:bit board. Scouts worked with motors and lights and some sensors.

Maker Materials: Scouts used cardboard and recycled materials along with general craft tools and materials. As a practical and aesthetic challenge, they were not allowed to use glue (unless absolutely necessary). So I shared 11 techniques for connecting cardboard without using glue!! I love glue, but kids tend to slather it on like ketchup, often making the end product look messy. They were surprised at how well these connection techniques worked in their final projects.