LEGO Hexbug Mazes!

Earlier this semester I boldly declared that the Egg Drop Challenge  was my favorite program we have ever done. I still think that, but LEGO Hexbug Mazes was a VERY close second! We planned a lot of really fun programs this spring and I am thrilled we were able to do this one just before school closed as a result of Covid-19.

Kids love LEGO. That is one thing I have learned in my years as a children’s librarian. I learned about Hexbugs a year or so ago and bought them for a different STEM maze activity, but I thought this time it would be fun to add the bonus of LEGO to our program.

Looking back on this program is really strange. Our programs run Thursdays after school, and the following day was the students last school day of the 2019-2020 school year. Literally 24 hours after this program, school shut down because of the coronavirus and I did not see my students again until the following school year. We had a GREAT program, but looking back on it now is really strange!

First things first if you don’t know what Hexbugs are you need to look into them. They are REALLY neat. They are little plastic/silicone bugs with a motor inside that makes them move! They are a type of bristlebot (I’ve DIYed these before too and they are really fun!) so they vibrate and the little legs make them move and bounce all over. They are great for mazes, because they just bounce up against the side and keep moving. We’ve done different types of mazes with them before, but LEGO worked great because they are sturdy and the kids were able to build the walls a little higher than the bugs.

I had a TON of kids come to this program. I split them into groups, and gave each group a LEGO baseplate. They were told to create their section of the maze however they wanted as long as the entrance was on one side of the baseplate and the exit was on another. I took all their baseplates and made one long maze so the Hexbugs could go through them! Some of the groups covered their mazes like tunnels, so we couldn’t see the Hexbugs while they were navigating them. The kids always cheered when they emerged!

I ended up with 12 LEGO baseplates of mazes so we split them in half and hooked 6 baseplates together. So there were 2 final mazes. Here are photos of them!

And here are some close-ups of the Hexbugs going through the mazes!

Overall this was a really great and fun program and I would definitely do it again!

Egg Drop Challenge

This is my favorite after school program we have ever done. Full stop.

The egg drop challenge is the classic challenge where you have to build a contraption to protect an egg so that it doesn’t break when you drop it from a high place (For whatever reason, I have a vivid memory of watching DJ Tanner from Full House do this project). I stood on a ladder and dropped the kids eggs and contraptions into a kiddie pool (in case there was a mess).

We had tons of materials for the kids to choose from when they made their contraptions:

• Bubble wrap
• Sponges
• Toilet paper tubes
• Fruit containers
• Egg cartons
• Plastic grocery bags
• Cotton balls
• Cut up pool noodles
• Washcloths
• Socks
• Disposable gloves
• Styrofoam cups
• Small paper cups
• Toilet paper
• Newspaper
• Straws
• Q tips
• Tape
• String
• Rubber bands

There were a couple of things that had limits (bubble wrap and sponges were in HIGH demand) but overall we let the kids use whatever they wanted to create whatever kind of contraption they wanted.

Each group was given an Easter egg to start to measure roughly how big their egg would be. I didn’t want to give them their real egg too soon because if some of them got broken before the official drop I would have run out. The kids spent about 35 minutes making their contraption, and I waited until almost 30 minutes in before I gave them their eggs. It made it a little harder for some of them to build their contraptions, but I felt like it was the safest and easiest way to go! They all were very patient and understanding of this rule and I was thrilled about it.

I wish I had more pictures of the contraptions. I was running around like crazy helping kids and handing out eggs, and then I was doing the drop, so I don’t have pictures of the finish products. 😦 You can see a couple in the pictures below but they’re blurry because they are in motion. They were amazing though.

We had 17 groups of 2, and if I remember correctly 13 groups had surviving eggs! Some of those eggs were *so* wrapped up and protected that it took the kids several minutes to even see if their egg survived the drop. We were so thrilled with the results! 

I will 100% do this program again. It was SO fun to see the creative ideas the kids had! The only thing I would do differently would be maybe have 1 extra staff member so we could make sure we took more photos. 🙂  It was a great program!

STEM Bookclub #1 & #2

Last year at the Indiana State Library conference, I went to a fantastic seminar about a makerspace book club. I did some digging, and found the link to the presentation, and here it is! I’m sure it had more of an impact in person but there is a lot of really good information there about the overall gist of this program.

So that was a year ago. In August when we were having a big brainstorm about what to do during after school programs, this seminar came to mind. We decided to do 2 STEM Bookclub programs, with different activities at each.

The programs were planned for the Thursday before and after Thanksgiving, so that we would have a good deal of time in between to prep and reevaluate in necessary. But surprise! We had ice the Thursday before Thanksgiving and school was cancelled! Because of that, we added the program back on the next available Thursday and that made them two weeks in a row!

We had a solid handful of kids at each program. It was honestly low as far as our attendance usually goes, but the groups I had were so great and having too many more might have been a mess. So it was perfect!

The overall premise of these programs is this: a picture book is read out loud to the group, and then a problem is identified (it needs to be identified by librarians beforehand so that proper materials can be gathered). Once the students know the problem, they are tasked with fixing it. By using everyday materials, they use STEM thinking to solve the problem. It’s actually really simple! But I found that finding books that have a specific problem can be a little challenging. I will outline the two we did below so you can see them in action!

STEM Bookclub #1

Book: The Bugliest Bug by Carol Diggory Shields

Problem: Create a maze using materials that a Hexbug can maneuver through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay I won’t lie. This book doesn’t *exactly* connect with the STEM challenge, except for the fact that they both involve bugs. But I saw the Hexbug challenge on Pinterest and I thought it was the coolest thing. So I went searching for a book about bugs that I could pair with it. If I had found a book about a bug being lost or finding it’s way or something, that would have been PERFECT but I couldn’t. Hey, if you know of one, leave the title in the comments!

So after I read the story, I explained the challenge. We had 5 kiddos during the program, and they split up into girls vs boys, with 3 and 2 on each team. We didn’t give them a ton of super specific instructions (especially with such a small group) and they did a wonderful job!

Before we got to work, I gave each team a piece of plain paper and a pencil and asked them to sort of sketch out their plan before they got started. I told them it was okay if they changed their plan later, but I wanted them to stop and think for a minute before they started in.

We gave them the following materials to work with:

• Posterboard
• Tape (masking and Scotch)
• Straws of various sizes
• Popsicle sticks
• Toilet paper rolls

By using these materials, they made their mazes!

They did a fantastic job! Unfortunately I am unable to upload video to this blog, but here are the finished mazes both with a Hexbug in them!

It was a really fun activity and now we have Hexbugs to play with forever!

STEM Bookclub #2

Book: Toy Boat by Randall de Seve and Loren Long

Problem: Make a boat that can float in water and withstand wind.

The connection between the story and the problem is a lot stronger in this one! The boy in the story has a boat made out of recycled materials and it’s his very favorite toy. He accidentally lets go of the string when the boat is floating in the water and it gets away! So out kiddos were tasked with creating a boat that would float if it got away from them.

Step 1 for this program was to collect materials over the course of a few weeks. Actually the rescheduling was helpful in this regard because it gave us an extra week to collect materials! Here is a list of materials available to the kids:

• Bottles of various sizes
• Duct Tape and masking tape
• Styrofoam Cups
• Straws
• Popsicle sticks
• Pipe cleaners
• Stickers
• Extra bottle lids
• Hot glue guns (used by librarians only)
• Aluminum foil (cut by librarians only)

After we read the story, they got to work! They worked really hard on their boats and so few looked exactly alike! I was very proud of them and their innovation.

Once everyone was finished with their boats, we go tot work sailing them! I filled a kiddie pool with water so we didn’t have a huge float space. The kids took turns putting their boats in and seeing if they floated! They all did a pretty good job!! And then at the end they wanted to all put their boats in and let me turn on the fan (wind) and see what happened. Bumper boats happened. But they all stayed upright!

I will definitely be thinking of new things to do in the future but these both were really fun and brain building making activities and the kids had a lot of fun!!