« This is a 12th grade physics class and we’re using the automata to study torque and angular velocity. The project isn’t finished yet, but I’ll do my best to describe it in a nutshell. It’s called Seniors^2. Once a week we visit a local senior citizen center and each group of students meets with the same person every week. Throughout the semester my students get to know their senior citizen partner and put together a series of writing pieces about them. The pieces include investigative journalism, creative non-fiction, etc. They then have to create an automaton as a companion to one of their writing pieces (or somehow relate it to the senior). Before we even started studying the mechanics, they had to propose what they wanted it to do and have spent the last ~6 weeks figuring out how to accomplish the motion they proposed and building it. At the end of the project, we give the finished book and automaton to the senior citizens in hope that they give it to their grandchildren as a way to explain their legacy to their family. Each of the 16 projects described in the book are under construction and more or less operational. After our spring break, we have two weeks to concentrate on consistency and durability prior to gifting them. Fingers crossed. When it’s all done, I’ll publish videos of them all. One more teaser(a work in progress): http://youtu.be/S5l4ZNjHN9k«