I was scrolling through Twitter one afternoon and ran across this article:
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/11/eng-cedar-point-tech-lab.html about how a school was creating their own Thinkabit Lab(TM). My curiosity got the best of me and so I hit up Google to learn more. What I found was that Qualcomm has these labs set up at their headquarters and at Virginia Tech. Teachers schedule trips to the labs. Students learn about careers at Qualcomm or in their area and then learn to write basic code to program an Arduino to light LEDs and turn servo motors. During the final couple of hours students design and create their own moving project with the help of the Thinkabit Lab (TM) instructors and present them to their group. Everything I saw shouted "find out more"! So I did.
I could really see this as something that our students would not only benefit from, but would have fun learning in the process. I knew it would be a great addition to our maker space and provide students with another tool to use to create projects.
I filled out the "Contact Us" form. I explained our location and how much our students really needed a program such as this. Within a couple of days, I received an email from a representative at the Qualcomm(R) Thinkabit Lab (TM) in San Diego. She sent me a very positive email about the possibility of a partnership and asked me to complete an application. I poured my heart and soul into it - like I said, I could really our students loving this!
A couple of days later I received another email to schedule a conference call. This was the final step to bringing this to our school if we met their criteria.
The call lasted 2 hours. They covered the expectations and guidelines and what the project entailed. My enthusiasm for the project was palpable. I was concerned that the project would be housed in our media center as a part of our maker space. The other locations had completely converted a room to mimic their labs in San Diego and Falls Church. I sent them pictures of our space with the application. To make a long story short, we became the first Inspired by Qualcomm(R) Thinkabit Lab(TM) in North Carolina! As a part of this partnership, they would send us the major supplies we needed to get started including 20 Arduino kits.
Then the fun began... I had never touched an Arduino in my life, let alone programmed one. I do love YouTube! I purchased my own kit from Amazon and spent hours watching videos to learn to do some basic programming. The first time I programmed and LED to blink would have made you think I had discovered a suitcase full of money that I could keep! I was just a little excited.
It was also fun trying to explain the project to people. They looked at me like I had 4 heads and politely nodded and said "uh-huh" when I animatedly told them how awesome this was for our students.
When the kits came in, I dove right in. I still wasn't quite confident enough to start the first project yet. I wanted to see the program in action, so I scheduled a visit with the Virginia Tech Thinkabit Lab in Falls Church, VA.
My visit took place over spring break. I arrived early to ask the director questions and to take pictures of the layout. As the day went on, I left with pages of notes, tons of ideas, more confidence that I would be able to carry things out and several examples to show students. That was the most important part. I could tell them, but seeing what others created was much more powerful.
Now I just have to get things started. I'm going to do a small scale project with my club and I've already started talking to our STEM teacher about collaborating on a project. I'll let you know how it goes!
