ExCEL Program Proposal

Agency Name: The Noisebridge - Teach Me To Make Partnership

Contact Person: Michael Shiloh
Mailing Address: 470 La Grande, San Francisco, CA 94112
E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Phone Number: 415-425-5320
Fax Number: na
Tax ID: [redacted]
Insurance Carrier: State Farm

Two unique local educational organizations, Noisebridge and Teach Me To Make, are
working together to create a single unified proposal. The histories, knowledge, and
experience of each organization are being combined to create a greater offering.

Our organizations are eager to offer hands-on technical programs through ExCEL. The
sample lesson plans shown below only scratch the surface of the kinds of programs we
can deliver. We are anxious to work with
ExCEL and the SFUSD to provide programs
that best meet the needs of individual schools
and the interests of students. We are
passionate about these subjects and enjoy
inspiring this passion in the younger
generation.

We understand that different schools have

different needs in terms of class size,
schedule, frequency, and subject matter. We
are flexible and will work with each school to
provide the services that best meet their needs
and wishes.

We would especially like to make these programs accessible to students who might
initially be reluctant to try these subjects, especially girls and children of color.

We would like to work with SFUSD to bring projects based on our programs to the Bay
Area Science Fair.

Similarly, most of our members are very involved in the Maker Faire. A wonderful
outcome of this program would be projects which the children can bring to Maker Faire.
The Maker Faire organization is extremely interested in showcasing student projects that
help inspire and encourage other students.

We encourage you to look at our current programs at:

https://www.noisebridge.net and http://www.teachmetomake.com/

I.1 Briefly describe your organizations history and mission in working with diverse
groups of children and in providing training for adults.

Noisebridge is a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit corporation with a rich history working

with children and adults in the local community.

The Noisebridge facility, located ½ block from 16th St BART station in the Mission
provides collaboration opportunities for people interested in a vast array of subjects
including physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer
programming, hardware hacking, photography,
security, robotics, linguistics, electronics, and cooking.
Through talks, workshops, and projects we encourage
knowledge exchange, learning, and mentoring. As a
space for artistic collaboration and experimentation, we
are open to all types of art - with a special emphasis on
the crossover of art and technology.

The Noisebridge organization consists of more than 200

members, a portion of which are occasional mentors. The teachers available for teaching
in the ExCEL program currently consists of 7 of these members.

There are a number of active programs going on at the Noisebridge Facility. Each class is
generally composed of 1-3 mentor-instructors and 8-25 students. This week at
Noisebridge the following classes took place (taken from our class listing)

 Monday Circuit Hacking Mondays - Weekly workshop to solder stuff! Learn

how to solder from some of the best out there.
 Wednesday Machine Learning - Weekly get-together about Machine Learning.
 Thursday Professional VFX Compositing With Adobe After Effects - Learn how
to create photo realistic visual effects composites using After Effects. 7-10pm
 Thursday Science, Engineering & Design Huddle - Weekly group to discuss
design approach, share techniques, and solve any problem you may be having
with your project(s). 7pm
 Friday Mandarin Corner - Weekly study group to practice Chinese language (and
eat Chinese food).
 Friday CrazyCryptoCnight - Weekly night starting at 6pm for discussing
cryptography. Novices and experts welcome alike!
 Saturday - DIYbio Salon: Do it Yourself Biology, a place to learn and share
about biotech in the Bay area.
 Sunday Cyborg Group - 11AM (sorry) weekly gathering to work on projects like
artificial senses (just go click the link)
Formed in 2006, Teach Me to Make provides science workshops and classes for all ages.
Our popular electronics and mechanics workshops for children encourage tinkering:
taking things apart; building whimsical contraptions using salvaged components, recycled
objects and inexpensive supplies; and re purposing mechanisms and components to
different needs. Using both an artistic and technical approach, each child is guided and
encouraged in the way best suited to their way of thinking. Our bilingual instructors are
further able to engage and mentor children of varied backgrounds.

Teach Me to Make created Make Play Day, the best attended workshop at Make
magazine's Maker Faire. During this event, Teach Me to Make taught thousands of
children of all ages about science by showing them how to build electromechanical
contraptions.

Teach Me to Make created a series of electrical and electronic classes with the San Jose
Tech Museum of Innovation, designed to teach children advanced electrical and
electronic principles using hands-on techniques.

Teach Me to Make worked with Make magazine's Mobile Make outreach program,
bringing art and technology education through hands on projects to children of the greater
Bay Area, from Sonoma to San Mateo. A variety of socio-economic backgrounds
communities were served, including many Special Needs students. We worked
especially closely with the special need students to make sure they participated fully in
the project and achieved the same sense of accomplishment as their fellow students.

II.2 Highlight one of your most successful programs and support your successes
with evaluation data.

One of the most successful programs at Noisebridge is called “Circuit Hacking

Mondays”. Each week the program introduces about 5 new students to electronics and
soldering. The program is mentored by Noisebridge co-founder Mitch Altman and taught
by Mitch and various members. The program is brought to a large group at Maker Faire
in San Mateo each year with the “Huge Hardware Hacking Area” program. 20 mentor-
instructors teach approximately 100 students in this open enrollment, weekend-long
program.

One of the workshops Teach Me To Make leads

as part of the Make Magazine outreach program
was at Redwood High School, which is a
continuation high school. Continuation high
schools were established to serve those students in
need of more flexibility and attention than is
possible in the regular high school program.

Some of the issues the school deals with are teen parents, orphans, English as a second
language, and learning disabilities. The school teaches parenting, jobs skills, and practical
and basic skills for graduation. As was typical of high school students, their initial
response to the project (Bottle Rockets) was quite indifferent. Their first question was
usually “are we going to be tested on this?”. However, once we started the lesson and
demonstrated the rockets, the students became enthusiastic and involved in the project.
We discussed the basic physics while setting up the launcher. We designed the class to be
fun, educational and engaging. We taught 6 classes/periods and several students stayed
additional hours and came back at the end of the day with their babies to let us know how
much they enjoyed it.

II.3 Include any work done with ExCEL After School Programs (or similar
programs).

Teach Me To Make, as part of Make magazine's outreach program, taught workshops at

Sonoma Boys and Girls Club, Redwood High School, Sanchez Elementary School,
Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, Westmoor High School, ASCEND School
(Oakland), Creative Arts Charter School, Bret Harte (Oakland), and Berkeley Arts
Magnet. A number of these, such as Sanchez Elementary School and Bessie Carmichael
Elementary School participate in the ExCEL program.

Experience working with and training adults

Teach Me To Make works with and trains adults through a variety of venues. At The
Crucible, we teach electronics and mechanics to teachers, artists, architects, and
designers, as well as the curious lay person. At the Make Play Day workshop we teach
adults as well as children, although children are the primary focus.

III. Sample Lesson Plans

Sample Lesson Plan 1: 4th Grade Electric Circuits

Supplies per student: 1 LED, 1 coin cell battery, 2’ wire, 2 clothes pins
Additional Supplies: clear tape
This lesson plan addresses California State Standard Grade Four Physical Sciences 1.a
and 1.g

Subjects covered: batteries, light emitting diodes, electrical circuits, switches, electrical
polarity. Advanced topics include parallel and series switches and logic

Each student is given a coin cell battery and LED.

- Discuss that a battery provides electric potential and how it has polarity
- Discuss what an LED does, paying attention to the polar nature of LEDs.

Have students put the LED and battery together in various ways.
- Sometimes the LED will light up, sometimes not because of the polar nature of LEDs.
- Remind students of the operation so that all of the students’ LEDs light up.
- Have the students reverse the LEDs. Talk about a diode as a one-way gate.

Ask the students to let contact between the LED and battery fail.
- Discuss how this is a switch and how they can turn the LED on as they see fit.
- Discuss how this switch is similar to other electrical switches

Have the students use a clothes pin to attach a length of wire and the LED to the battery
- Have the students use the wire to make and break electrical contact with the LED.
- Discuss how the electricity is going through the wire.
- Discuss what a short circuit is and how it should be avoided

Have the students make a switch using the second clothes pin, wire and clear tape.
- Show the students how they can now flash the LED at will.

Optional topics for further exploration:

- make an interactive diorama with the lights on foam core
- LEDs in parallel
- switches in series and parallel (introduces binary logic)

Sample Lesson Plan 2:

Introduction to Programming and Microcontrollers with Arduino
Prerequisites:
Basic electronics

Supplies per student:

Arduino ($30)
solderless breadboard ($5)
10 LEDs ($.10)
5 clothespin switches ($.50)
Material for DIY sensors ($2)

Additional Requirements:
Computer Lab, Arduino IDE installed (free)
Additional Supplies:
Wire, 100' = $20. Each student needs about 2'.

Subjects covered:
Programming
Microcontrollers
Breadboarding principles
Advanced topics include:
Binary arithmetic
 Logic
Heat dissipation and ability to sink/source current
Transistor theory

Lecture:
- Display (computer and projector required) Arduino schematic
- Discuss how individual outputs can be controlled
- Discuss basic programming principles (shampoo instructions)
- Display program to turn on LED
- Discuss program
- Discuss compiling and downloading

Lab: Each student is given an Arduino and access to a computer with the Arduino IDE
- Walk students through
- Opening IDE
- Opening LED program
- Compiling and Downloading
- Each student observes pin13 LED illuminating

Lecture:
- Display program to blink LED
- Discuss loops and timing

Lab:
- Each student programs LED to blink, by modifying the first program themselves

Lecture:
- Display schematic
- Discuss connector
- Show how LED can be connected to pin13 and ground

Lab:
- Each student reproduces the above
- Students move LED to different pin
- Walk students through how to modify
program to use other pin
- Add second LED
- Blink both at same time
- Blink both at opposite times

Lecture:
- Display schematic
- Discuss input
- Display program to read input

Lab:
 - Each student builds switch, connects to input,
- modifies program to blink LED only when switch is activated

A possible 16 week program might include:

2 lessons per week, 2 hours per lesson, 30 students

======
2-3 lessons basic circuit projects
2-3 lessons electromagnetic projects
1 lesson soldering
2-3 lessons diodes and transistors
2-3 lessons intro to circuit diagrams, building more complex circuit
- take home project: Flashlight that sucks power from dead batteries
5 lessons integrated circuits
- LED blinker
- oscillator
- light sensitive Theremin
- LED dimmer and motor speed control
10 lessons digital electronics, programming, microcontrollers

Some of our programs have greater initial material costs than other organizations
programs, but overall cost remains very low over the long term due to intelligent
component and project selection. For example, in our sample lesson plan for the "Joule
Thief", each student builds and takes home their project, a flashlight that runs on
seemingly dead batteries, for $2 per student. At the advanced level, the Microcontroller
program uses an Arduino programmable board for each student. While more expensive,
this is reused and thus the per-student per-program price is kept low.

IV. Proposed Instructional Personnel

1. Describe your agency's staff hiring and training requirements

Our organizations include a great many members covering a wide range of skills,
experiences, and areas of expertise. While many may participate in the ExCEL program
as guest speakers, a much smaller subset will be the formal instructional personnel.

Teachers are chosen on the basis of knowledge, interpersonal skills, and the ability to
impart their knowledge to students in a clear, easy-to-follow manner. To participate in
this program, teachers must show sensitivity to the needs and understanding of different
students, and must be able to explain concepts in alternate ways appropriate to each
students. Teachers must be patient, good listeners, and respectful.
2. Delineate how your organization ensures the staff's ability to manage student
behavior and provide high quality instruction.

Our staff keeps up to date with current best practices in student behavior and effective
instructional methods. Our staff attend many professional development conferences, both
as attendees and as speakers. The organization members welcome and invite frequent
feedback and creative criticism, ensuring consistently high
quality teachers.

3. Indicate how you plan to monitor staff attendance,

instructional performance, and evaluation in the program,
and how substitute arrangements will be handled when
regularly assigned staff is unavailable.

Many of our classes will be lead by multiple teachers, such as a

head teacher and a secondary teacher, who might be an
assistant, guest speaker, or other. At the end of each class,
each teacher will provide feedback to the program managers
who will evaluate the program, teachers, and curriculum,
making modifications as required. The members of our organization have an excellent
commitment to responsible behavior. The large number of committed members in our
combined organizations assures us of a large pool of qualified substitute staff. Every class
will have an assigned backup substitute teacher, who can be called in on short notice.
Members of our organization also communicate often and effectively using many
electronic means, assuring ample notice of potential substitute requirements.