A Monstrous Success!

After hours of tinkering, I have had a monstrous breakthrough!

In my last post, I had run into an obstacle on my Mad Monster Candy Snatch build.


A singular reply to my plea for help got me on the right track, verifying that I was correct to have soldered new wires to the speakers and pointing out that I could determine the polarity of the wires by looking more closely at the speaker itself.

Although no one had been able to explain how to wire everything up to the transistor, I finally figured it out!

I apologize for the vertical video below, but I was so excited that I got my monster to work that I didn't pay attention!

Here is how I finally got it to work:

1.  Identify the BCE legs of your transistor and set it aside.  I labeled mine.

2.  Solder a second pair of wires to the Radio Shack speaker. (This direction was missing from the ones in the magazine, although the pictures on their website clearly show the addition of extra wires.)  If you look closely at the top of the speaker, you'll be able to determine which wire is positive and which is negative.

3.  After wiring the LEDs in parallel (I connected one 12-inch wire to the negative legs and another 12-inch wire to the positive legs), I soldered one end of the resistor to the end of the positive wire.  I then soldered the positive lead of the second battery to the other end of the resistor.  (This is the second battery, not the one connected directly to the speaker.)

4.  Solder the negative wire attached to your LEDs to the C leg of your transistor.

5.  Solder the positive wire from your speaker to the B leg of your transistor.

6.  Solder the negative wire from your speaker and the negative lead of the second battery to the E leg of your transistor.

7.  Follow the magazine's directions for connecting the alligator clips to the monster and to the wires that you soldered to the speaker.

Good Luck!

Shift Happens: The Power of Video

I just finished taking a powerful course through RETN and Southern New Hampshire University titled "From Idea to Impact:  Harnessing the Use of Video in your Classroom."

Because I am camera shy and prefer to work behind the scenes, this course was a huge opportunity for growth.  It stretched me, made me think deeply, and challenged me in ways that few other courses have. My approach to teaching and assessment has shifted as a result of this class.  I cannot recommend it enough.

During the course of one packed week, eight of us worked under the guidance of award-winning instructors and video professionals.  We learned how to work in teams to storyboard, shoot, edit, and distribute a relevant, high-quality video production by planning and executing projects from idea to impact.

As we grappled with what it means to use, practice, and assess 21st century skills with our students, we created, collaborated, communicated, and solved problems in ways that most of us had never done before. At the start, we experienced the pressures of wanting our projects to be the best they could be.  We over-thoughts things.  We worried.  We feared judgement and failure.  We grumbled at the limits of time that repeatedly interrupted us in the middle of meaningful work.

These feelings had been engineered:  we were supposed to feel inadequate, frustrated, harried, scattered, and nervous...just like many of our students do when the focus is on grades.

Then something shifted.  We accepted the fact that failure is vital to growth.  We understood that artistic process is at the heart of deep and meaningful learning.  We brainstormed, researched, drafted, received feedback, and revised revised revised.  We looked back reflectively on where we'd started and were grateful for the opportunity to feel proud of how far we'd come together.

While this is my final product, it was the PROCESS of experiencing collaboration in a new way that will make me a more compassionate and effective teacher.