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This was my first time ever trying to do any wiring for electrical things...kind of scary when you don’t really know anything about it hahaha. But through researching I think I got it done right! The male end of the extension cord is plugged into the wall and what used to be the female side hooks up to this outlet to give it power. My water pump and fogger will be plugged into this outlet. The reason I had to do this is because I have it hooked up to a relay which is something that turns things on and off based on a program that controls it. The relay is connected to this outlet through one side and the other side is connected to an Arduino which will hold the program or the brains of the operation. I’m both excited and nervous to try this out because I really hope I don’t screw anything up, but there’s only one way to find out, I’m fairly confident that everything is hooked up the way it should be! This is all for my personal project in which I am making an aeroponic system and need to control when the water pump turns on and off.

-Erick

#aeroponic #outlet #wiring #electric #relay #SMM

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In trying to develop a glow in the dark activity we ended up combining to activities. One was painting with the highlighter ink and one was making slime. This is what we ended up. We are still trying to figure out what else we can do with this to take it one step further so if you have any ideas, feel free to share them with us! Otherwise the slime is, yes...really really fun and addicting to play with! 

-Erick

#slime #glowinthedark #SMM

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An update to the Window garden I was making as an example for people to see as they made their own at the Museum. I took two cuttings from a parsley plant and put them in and they are doing well. After cutting a lot of bottoms of plastic bottles, I did this activity on the floor and helped people make their version of the window garden. Unfortunately we can’t spray paint on the floor for many reasons so with a little improvising, we decided to use duct tape and let people decorate the bottom halves of their bottles whatever way they wanted as long as it would block out the sun to prevent exposing the roots to light. It was a lot of fun teaching people about these because they were amazed at how simple it is and how different it is to most ideas of gardening that they know. 

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Yesterday at the Arlington Hills Library/Community Center I made a green bean chime. I used the laser etcher to cut the cardboard. Then I used a Makey Makey and Scratch to make it into instrument. I doesn't work as well as I would like because you need to make a lot of contact with green bean.

Jordan

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Here's a cool photo we got when we were playing with an activity of making our own lava lamps. Using Oil, food coloring, water, and alka-seltzer, it's also a cool activity to play around with different densities. For example, this food color you can see at the top of the picture was sitting between the oil and the water. It sat there for a minute or two and then suddenly started falling like you see in the picture. It was really pretty! 

The bottom photo is of the actual lava lamp-like cup that we tried for this activity. Once the alka-selzer is dropped into the cup, the bubbles start forming and moving through the liquid in the cup. It fizzes at the top and if using a cup, you can place it on top of a piece of white paper and make some cool art with the circle that forms around the cup.

-Erick

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Today we played with BUBBLES! It was fun to see what mixture worked best. Both bubble mixtures had water and dish soap but, one had baking soda and the other one had corn syrup. The one with baking soda work the best. 

We also tried different kind of bubble wands. The one with short string that connected the two sticks didn't work very well. But when we shortened the other two strings it started to work.

I still need to test different combination.

Jordan

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In this past week I have been working on growing crystals.

We made our saturated solution out Epsom Salt and water. We heated up the water then mixed in the salt and food coloring. Then we used a pipette to take out just the liquid. 

Nothing happens right away but, it’s still pretty cool to watch the crystals grow. It takes about 2 days. 

We were thinking that people could go home continue to make their crystals bigger.

Jordan

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Today I messed with the chalk recipe. I felt like the powdered paint was too messy so I tried food coloring instead. The food coloring worked amazingly well. The food coloring was way more efficient than powdered paint. Because the bottles were small it save me time and energy transporting it and using it.

I also played with molds for the chalk. Even though it uses more resource I prefer this over just using the portion cups. I used cookie cutters for the molds and just put duct tape on the bottom. It wasn't perfect but it was super easy to transfer. Using the paper towels tubes makes the chalk look and feel like store bought chalk. If I ever mess around with this again I want to use different things like cones or make my own shapes with foil.

Jordan

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Today we tried a new activity for the first time. We were making chalk with the public. It was a messy activity, in the best way! It was a very busy activity as people of all ages were curious about making chalk. And as soon as they found out how easy it was a lot of people were talking about trying it at home. That is one of our main goals, to inspire people to try these and many other activities at home. This activity involves only plaster, powdered color, and water. It was a lot of fun to work with kids on this project and I only wish I could see what they are going to design with it. It’s a nice activity because people can walk away with something in their hands that they themselves made. I really hope and think that we will continue this activity in the museum.

-Erick

#make #chalk

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I am personally working on a project to make window gardens out of recycled plastic bottles. These are what the name says, basically a garden on your window where the bottles are stacked on top of each other and inserted into the bottle below. This allows for a trickling down water system where water is recycled and goes from plant to plant. It uses vertical growing which is nice because it takes up vertical space which typically means using less space throughout a living quarters. It is also nice for growing vegetables or fruits during winter months. If you've never seen anything like this and are interested, you can youtube window gardens to get an idea.

-Erick

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This week we worked on developing a few different activities. This one in the photos is about making crystals. By dissolving Epsom salt and food coloring in water, we are able to see crystals forming once the water dissolves. Kids would take the liquid home and watch it everyday as the water dissolves. We are also thinking about the idea that people could grow their own crystals by continuing to soak the tiny crystal formed in the beginning. Though this would take longer, it would be cool to grow a crystal :) 

-Erick

#growacrystal #saturatedsolutions 

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As an intern, we participate with other interns at the museum and have some trainings that we go through. One that I found very interesting and it stuck with me was learning about Growth mindsets. Now I kind of knew about this before actually knowing it was a thing but learning about it backed by research and all that drove my interest in this topic even more! 

I suggest everyone take a look at this video as it talks about a an issue that many people (young and old) run into...thinking they can’t do it. By knowing and thinking you can do something, you will someday achieve it. The way that I am tackling this this summer is by challenging myself to work on a project using electronics and programming, two things that I have been intimidated by my whole life and I am going to face it head on and little by little become somewhat effective in this area. 

Know that you can, and you will! Your brain is kind of like a computer, you tell something (give it the input) and it will give you the output eventually. In other words tell yourself you can, tell your brain that all you need is practice and devotion to the topic.

-Erick 

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Finally in week two of working as part of the Maker Corps in the museum and I say finally because it has been pretty awesome! Yesterday we were working on developing an activity where we made speakers/headphones out of paper, dixie cups, a magnet, and coils. This was so simple yet pretty fascinating when you just created sound. One seems to forget how sound works and how we receive it everyday because we’ve become so accustomed to it. But through tinkering around with these very basic materials and making such a simple item, the appreciation for these overlooked products is so much higher. Not only that but you develop a happy and proud feeling knowing that you just created sound hahaha. I can’t wait to try this activity with the kids and adults in our museum.

These past two weeks have been great being able to see all the possibilities of tools and materials we can work with, it’s almost overwhelming trying to decide where to start. I want to play and tinker with everything but unfortunately don’t have time to do that. The tools I really hope to learn are the 3D printer and the sewing machine. I don’t yet know what I’ll use them for, but I hope to figure something out. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know! Today, I will begin researching my personal project, something I’m very passionate about and looking forward to trying out. I have never done anything like it, but am looking forward to figuring it out and completing my own challenge.

-Erick

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Week Two

Today (Thursday) Eric and I were working on getting our paper speakers working and instead we came up with the idea to do cardboard headphones.

Its a work in progress but, I feel like we are on the right track.

Tomorrow  I am going to work on my personal project Which will be making a fully functioning RC car using the Galileo Gen 2 Development Board.

I also plan on improving on the paper speaker.

Jordan

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Hello All,

so i have been working on some ideas this past week one of them being cardboard animation.

I got the Inspiration from a linkages Hangout!

I plan on adding a paper circuit this week! 

P.S It’s supposed to be two bird faces

Jordan

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Maker Corps Introduction

What’s up everybody!

My name is Jordan.

I’m from The Science Museum of Minnesota. I’ve been with the museum for 6 years now. I also like art(but I'm not good at it). I like taking pictures and making music. I’m currently going to school to get a degree in computer science. I do a lot of game making in scratch but, I plan on working more with stencyl and unity. I know 3 programming languages(Ruby, Labview, and HTML). I want to learn Java and C++ in the next year.

If you want to learn more about me feel free to email me at

jordanlgilliard@gmail.com

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Maker Corps Intern Intro

Hey Hey everybody!

My name is Erick. I’m coming from the Science Museum of Minnesota. My main drive in life is traveling and getting to know and share with other cultures and people :) I’ve lived in several different countries and speak three languages. I have a big interest in art and a new interest in engineering-like topics. I graduated with and advertising degree but in the fall I will be dedicating myself full time to learning how to computer code and build programs and applications. I don’t have all that much experience in Making, but I’m fascinated by it. I’ve made a few things for my camera gear using PVC pipes and other materials. I’ve also made a few tools for gardening such as window gardens using reused plastic bottles. I spend a lot of time looking at DIY projects online and being fascinated by them so I’m really excited to learn more about the Maker movement and be a part of it.

I like to paint with oils, make music, make videos, garden, cook, and play a variety of different sports. I also really enjoy learning new things so I’m definitely looking forward to this program and collaborating with all of you!