These are some of the projects my students worked on at my Building Automata class taught at Bainbridge BARN.
Students ranged from 9-14 years old.
We used kits I’ve designed based on the amazing work of automata makers and the Automata Tinkering Kit from Cabaret Mechanical.

My newest Instructable is up. It shows you how to make this little guy who cheers you on AND helps keep track of the tasks you complete.
Efficient? Barely. Cute? Overload!

www.instructables.com/Cheerleading...

May the 4th be with you!
This is one of my favorite moments in the whole of Star Wars. I made this a couple of years ago with two MakeyBits. I
love making skins for them to turn them into all sorts of characters and building projects around them. Figuring out the speeder bikes was particularly fun.

Made this one a couple of years ago by hacking an Easter decoration and adding motors and a Microbit. The tires that came with it did not have great traction since they were not meant to be used as such, but they worked well enough.

In honor of the Year of the Snake, here’s a project I made a while back that people either love or hate depending on how they feel about snakes. The rattle always catches them by surprise.
The start of the calendar year was horrible for me, so here’s hoping the lunar year starts better!

Merry Christmas! I hope Santa made his way to your homes without crashing as much as the one I made did.
Made with a couple of MakeyBits.

Hug your loved ones tightly these holidays, and keep those physically away close to your heart.
I hacked this bear head I bought from Target a while back. I opened the mouth and added electronics to make him lip sync.
Endless hours for silliness have followed.

In honor of Krampus Night, here’s a project I made a couple of years ago using the MakeyBit and a MicroBit.
I wanted the chase to look more frantic so I added toothpicks on the ground that made the characters jerky. The children are Make soldering badges because why not?
#krampusnacht

It’s chilly today. So don’t mind me if I keep drinking tea with Grogu.
This project works with a sound sensor, so if it gets loud (like in the classroom) it’s a reminder to take a sip of coffee/tea and a deep breath.
Ironically, it seems at some point I removed the audio from the video?

I made this card for #LightUpPoptober this year. The prompt was “order” and I thought about the kids in my life who have been/are obsessed with placing their tot cards in just the right order.
Made with Chibitronics light up stickers, which work great for folding cards.

And just for fun, here’s one of my current lab assistants, Calvin, inspecting my work.
I have other lab assistants, but Calvin is the most dedicated and thorough.

This one is a “classic”. I use it as a demo for most of my petting zoo classes.
The distance sensor in the butterfly senses how close you are and the closer you get, the faster the cat wiggles his butt.
I made it in honor of my OG cat, Gally, who was (fortunately) terrible at catching butterflies.

To make Bluesky feel a bit more like “home”, I’ll slowly repost some of my favorite past projects.
This crank automata moves, lights up, and plays some music. I was tricky to design the gears right for all of it to work. I learned lots of things on this project, so I’m very fond of it.

Just a little quick prototype/demo. I’m debating whether to make the pig 3D or not. The cam needs to be longer so the movement is more pronounced.

#automata #flyingpig

The video from the first post is from Saturday’s workshop and this video is from a different workshop I had a while ago with older students.
I’m sharing it in case you are wondering how it works with students of about 10-16 years old as an activity.

#steamactivity #robot #steam

Saturday’s wobblebot workshop ended up being with younger students than usual. It meant the students were a lot more interested making the exact same bot I had as a demo than making their own. And it also meant a lot more hands on helping them and less time to take photos/videos of their creations.

This Saturday I’ll be teaching a workshop at my local library where students will build “wobblebots” like these.
It’s always a fun one because students come up with the craziest builds and the bots seem to have a mind of their own.