Matt's Lab

Virtual reality (and augmented reality) have become major buzz words in educational technology. With inexpensive VR headsets, such as Google Cardboard , and the use of student smart phones, teachers can take their classes on virtual reality field trips - a much more preferred trip to administrators than pouring money into bus fuel. But besides immersing students in gimmicky games and field trips until the VR sickness kicks in, how else can virtual reality be leveraged as a learning tool? Building with A-Frame I attended the annual Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. I had made it my personal and professional mission to learn how virtual reality could be used as a learning tool in computer science education. On the very first day I dove into a VR workshop where I discovered one method of programming virtual reality worlds and creating interactive 3D environments. Anyone who thinks code must be developed from scratch is kidding ...

I built an Adafruit LED Sand Toy using an Adafruit Feather M0, a blue CharliePlex LED FeatherWing, and accelerometer boards. While this was an awesome project to try out, I had some bumps along the way. It forced me to think outside the box and make some minor, but helpful, modifications to the original design. 3D Printing the Case The Adafruit Learn website for this project provides a list of materials, 3D-printing files, code, and wiring diagrams. 3D-printing the toy’s casing 3D-printing internal parts Connecting the Wires I used a thicker gauge of wire than recommended which made soldering a little difficult. This was my first time using heat-shrink tubes to insulate connected wires to keep them from being exposed to other connections. It worked out well, and I highly recommend using some heat-shrink tubes on clamps to protect circuit boards. Soldering the boards at my work station - shown with helping hands, silicone mat, tweezers, solder, and solder...

I’m not really a big fan of fidget spinners. I mean the ones with LEDs in the weights are pretty cool, but outside of that I find them rather boring as a toy. Regardless, I decided to take one apart and see how these addictive things work. Then… I made one. The fidget spinner essentially consists of four parts: the case, the caps, the bearing, and three weights. Sometimes the weights can be bearings as well. This lets you do additional tricks with the fidget spinner. Model of Fidget Spinner Case and Caps I was able to create a 3D model of the casing and caps after watching a few YouTube videos on disassembling fidget spinners to learn about their designs. You can find a variety of intricate models on sites like Thingiverse and Tinkercad , but I chose to make a simple one for my first try. 3D model of case and caps Download or modify a 3D version of the solid model I created. 3D Printing My Design I used a Tinkerine Ditto Pro 3D printer to create the ca...

My daughter’s doll lost a hand. After searching for a few days, she suggested I make her doll a new hand. My kids apparently think their dad can create and fix anything. While I had never attempted to create a solid model of a toy part, I was ready for the challenge. I began with some geometric primitive shapes in Tinkercad , a 3D-modeling application. For the palm of the hand, I started with a sphere and extended that with a rectangular prism. The post that extended outward from hand to attach it to the arm of the doll was created with a cylinder and a torus wrapped around it. This cylinder jutted outward from the sphere, and the torus would allow for the hand to snap into the doll’s arm - if only my precise measurements were correct. I used a caliper to measure the post and hand dimensions of the right hand and reversed it for my left-hand model. After building the solid model of the doll’s left-hand, I tweaked it and made adjustments to the dimensions. Trying to make i...