Hello and thank you for watching our presentation about Tekniverse! We are very excited to connect with educators and researchers, parents, and STEM advocates exploring electronics, coding, and/or wireless technologies in the classroom. Our focus is providing technology that is accessible not only from a user experience perspective but also in terms of cost and flexibility to integrate with other materials and products. We have a strong focus on attracting girls to STEM through our project themes. Our existing product line of invention kits and custom craftable electronic modules focuses on blending technology with craft through sewing circuits, making paper robots, etc and can be seen at https://www.teknikio.com/pages/shop. Tekniverse is the next level in our learning system, geared towards expanding the scale and potential of student projects. The project has been in development for the past 2 years and is supported by the NSF. We are actively looking for collaborations that will provide feedback, case studies, and curriculum on how Tekniverse can be integrated into the K-12 classroom and beyond. Our platform is designed for classroom use but can be adapted for afterschool, library, makerspace, camp, and other settings. We are currently focusing on themes for virtual summer camps using Tekniverse including designing a Smart City, the Future of Healthcare, Digital Justice, and an intro to Wireless Networks. We enjoy exploring new applications and possibilities for our products and are always interested in different perspectives and look forward to hearing from you!

The link to the older devices show how innovative and potentially captivating these can be.  There is a market for such materials and I have sunscribed each of my grandchildren to similar kits that lend themselves to engineering and design experiments.  Your materials are more open-ended also offer the possibility of experimentation.  These types of materials provide experiences seldom offered by schools and allow children to work at their own rates and levels of interest.  So I am encouraging about the Bluebird environment and hope it finds a market in various educational settings.  

Since this is at least partially funded by an SBIR II grant, I assume you have a market plan.   Schools are a pretty obviously part of the video with the lesson plans and community invention section.  How much training do teacher need to incorporate these into their classrooms?  Are you hoping that the system and devices will be part of future curriculum materials developed by others or do you see these as add ons to existing courses?  How will you reach teachers or teacher educators?  What other communities do you plan to target?

Dear Deren,

This looks really neat! Can you tell me a bit more about how you expect teaching learning with Bluebird might look different or result in different outcomes than things like Raspberry Pi or SparkFun kits?

Additionally, given that you have a programming platform, I'd love to know if you can share out a framework for what kinds of computational thinking or programming practices or concepts students can learn!

Hi Deren, as I work from home for the eighth straight week, I am always looking for project for my kids to do. They have little opportunity to engage in hands-on projects in their distance learning setting. Do you see potential for Bluebird to support students' independent learning from home? 

Hey Deren - interesting project! I am very interested in learning more about the stories students produced using Bluebird that Dr. Jochum referenced. What was the prompt and what were the expected learning outcomes of having them produce stories using Bluebird? 

This board looks so awesome! I have been trying to think of ways to play around with and demonstrate how squid behavior in groups is mediated by communication based on visual cues from rapidly changing patterns of chromatophores and photophores in their skin.  In the example of the houses signaling to each other, is that a photosensor in the adjacent house detecting the led (does it require that much proximity to detect the input)? Can these boards be networked wirelessly, too, so that they can interact with each other remotely? Hope to have a chance to try them out! 

Hi Perrin, thanks for watching our video, your work sounds very cool! To answer your questions:

1. Yes, there is a light sensor on the board, you can set the threshold depending on environmental conditions to trigger at a certain light threshold and this could work as a proximity sensor.
2. They can be networked over Bluetooth to interact remotely. We are also building a channel for them to communicate through our web App, in which case they would not have to be in the same room/ building (depending on the reach of the BLE radio).

If you are interested you can get one on our website and try it out:https://www.teknikio.com/collections/parts/products/bluebird-beta-v1-6

We'd be happy to help you with the squid demo if you do want to try and build it with Bluebird, it sounds right up our alley ;)

 Exciting project! This seems really well conceptualized for STEAM programs and I appreciate the varying levels of complexity and areas one can work with. 

What a cool and complete curriculum! Work with color, sound, movement, drawing, coding, etc., plus a web app that connects communities in collaboration with lesson plans.  Curious how the lesson plans are developed?  How you add new ones?  Is there some type of annual competition amongst users to design a lesson plan that would be added to the permanent collections? Seems like a great way to leverage the communities that are created and perpetuate the expansion of the Tekniverse!