A resounding 93% of the third grade came out for Mount Vernon’s inaugural Light Night event on a recent Saturday evening, at dusk.
In a maker project led by Jim Tiffin during their Maker Connections class, grade 3 students individually imagined, designed and built battery-operated accessories for their wheeled vehicles.
Students put a lot of work into their individual projects by completing their Bike Build Permit for Light Night and by walking through the following steps:
- Identified a design idea: “I’m going to make my wheels light up with Atlanta Braves colors and have headlights on my handlebars.”
- Sketched a plan
- Drew a diagram of the types of circuits they were going to use, for example: simple or parallel
- Listed all the materials they would need
- Determined how they knew their projects were complete: “All my lights have to stay on, securely on my bike.”
To demonstrate their engineering accomplishments and to carry out a “really cool display of light” Mr. Tiffin organized a group ride around the Glenn Campus driveway.
As their families flanked the drive as spectators, students wired, intertwined, positioned, and taped their self-made lights to their bikes, roller blades, scooters, and other wheeled vehicles. In Daytona 500 style, more than 50 third graders (and some siblings) rode 20+ laps around the Glenn Campus circle, spinning multi-colored lights the entire way.
Comments made by several riders:
“This is so much fun!”
“Did you see my lights from way down there?”
“I can’t believe I made this happen!”
“I’m going to keep these on my bike forever!”
In true Mount Vernon style…students listened, researched, explored, tried, produced and #hadfun.
