Sunday, June 21, 2015

Paper Circuitry and Animation

I have been captivated by paper circuitry and e-textiles since last summer, when I first started learning about soft circuits.  Using conductive thread or copper tape with LEDs to create objects that light up makes me extraordinarily happy, even if it hasn't necessarily contributed to my becoming a better writer, yet.  
While I have been deepening my exploration with soft circuits in my personal life, and by teaching a few workshops here and there, I am particularly interested in thinking more deeply about ways that this interest of mine can be integrated into content area teaching.  I want to know whether paper circuitry can help me and my future students become better thinkers, writers, and communicators.

I'd like to hear from other educators about how you have used paper circuitry to help upper middle to high school students communicate ideas or tell stories. 

Today, while I was thinking about this, I had an idea that could have some promise.  Rather than leaving my circuit hidden in a notebook, I decided to use it in a digital animation.   


Here's How I Did It:
This video is an app smash of iMovie, DoInk Greenscreen, and DoInk Drawing and Animation. I started by recording footage of a drawing of two cars in the middle of a road, with blinking headlights powered by a paper circuit.  I imported this clip into the DoInk Greenscreen app.  Next, I took a photo of the drawing and used Pixlr photo editer to remove the background from one of the cars, saving it as a transparent PNG file.  I imported the PNG file into the DoInk Drawing and Animation app and created a new composition, making the photograph appear to move.  I added the text by creating another animation.  I imported these compositions as new layers within the Greenscreen app, uploaded the final video to camera roll, and added audio within iMovie.

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