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Kinetic Sculpture: Program the Pico Cricket to Make Your Art Light Up or Spin
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Use a Pico Cricket (micro-controller) to animate your art! You can program a Pico Cricket to make your art spin, light up, or make music.

Push Pull Painter
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In this activity, learners create painting machines that can paint moving forwards and backwards.

Cup Draw (Low Tech)
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In this activity, learners construct drawing machines using a cup, some markers, and a battery pack. The markers act as "legs" for the machine, making a drawing that records as it moves.

Cactus Needle Phonograph
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Build a phonograph record player using a cactus needle, a record, LEGOs gear box, and a piece of paper! This activity uses a Pico Cricket to turn the motor.

Night Lights
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In this activity, learners create night lights using a plastic cup, programmable PICO Cricket, tri-color LED, and sensor.

Interactive Pencil Drawings: Drawings That Tell a Story!
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Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, a Minnesota artist, came up with this really fun and surprising activity using graphite from a pencil, connected with a Pico Cricket to tell a story: "The first time I saw s

Social Fireflies: Pico "Firefly" Communication
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Make two firefly lanterns, then program them to blink to one another and change colors.

Dance Pad Mania
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Make your own "Dance Dance Revolution" dance pad! In this design challenge activity, learners work in teams to build a dance pad that lets you use your feet to sound a buzzer or flash a light.

High Tech Fashion
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In this technology activity, learners build simple circuits, design soft circuits using conductive thread, and then sew switch-activated circuits.

Circuit Bending with Play-Doh
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Break open that used musical toy and squish some Play-Doh over the circuit boards, and you will hear some weird and distorted sounds the manufacturer never intended!

Jitterbugs
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In this activity, learners construct bug models that "jitter" all over the table with just a battery, motor, and counterweight.

Wandering Wands
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In this activity, learners construct wands that play different notes depending on information from light sensors programmed via a PICO Cricket.

Musical Gloves
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Put on a pair of gloves and be the conductor of your invisible orchestra!

Minibot
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In this activity, learners build a mini dancing robot. This engineering activity introduces learners to electricity, circuits, switches, conductivity, and motors.

Smart Domino Tricks
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In this activity, you take regular dominoes, and turn them into conductive switches that can turn on a LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket (micro controller). LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket is required.

Electric Cup Guitar
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Make a one-string "guitar" by stringing a cup with some fishing line. You amplify the plucking of the string by placing a piezo contact microphone and mini battery powered amplifier inside the cup.

Making Circuits
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In this activity, learners explore electricity and conductivity to find that many things conduct electricity including copper, pencil lead, fruit, play-doh, and even people!

Pickle-oh!: Musical Pickle Instrument
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What's a Pickle-Oh? Two pieces of pickle on a stick are connected to a Pico Cricket (micro controller). When you slide the pickles apart the note changes.

Motor Bird
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In this activity, learners build a bird that flies in place with help from a motor, wire, and some straws.

Electromagnetic Dancer: Connect Her Up and Watch Her Dance!
Source Institutions
In this activity, learners use a nail and magnet wire to build an electromagnet, which controls the movements of a paper dancer.