Warning:  Some of you are going to find this really dumb.  You’ve probably been doing this with your STEM-fueled 5th graders for years and are wondering why a 35 year old secondary math teacher is so excited about.  Four words: This. Isn’t, About. You.

So in April, I went with two great #MTBoS friends, Julie Wright and Danielle Reycer to the Exploratorium in San Francisco after NCTM.  To be honest, I was awed by the place, but my motion sickness unexpectedly overcame me, and I spent most of my time at the exhibits that didn’t require visual attention.  But in the back, there was a “maker-space” (or whatever you edu-folks call it) where they were making Scribbling Machines.  I took a look at it and thought “I want to do that this summer.  Maria will get a kick out of it.”

Step one:  get a 1.5 – 3.0 volt motor.  [Crap. Something with wires and electricity.  I can’t do wires and electricity.  Cuz I’m math, not science.

Tip:  Don’t purchase a new one.  Re-purpose one from a child’s toy.  [Sweet!  Look out, loud spinning, jump contraption from Hell’s fifth circle, I’m taking your motor!]

What I thought was the motor was not, but when I attached the battery, it became magnetic, which was neat.  I loosened about 8 more tiny screws and finally extracted the actual motor.  Now the game was on.  I was like a mad scientist, tongue to the side, laser focused on getting this scribble machine to function.  No, darling spouse, I won’t tell you what I’m doing, but you can see when I’m done.  Now go away.  

Here are a couple of videos of the Scribble Machine in action after a lot of adjusting and reconfiguring.  Yes, I know, I listen to great music:  Listen to the Music Radio on Google Play Music.

Here are the instructions if you are interested in making your own Scribble Machine.  Now if I could just get it to spiral…

You might be thinking, Ok, Beagle.  What’s the point?  You made a thing and now you want us to be excited for you?  Well, no.  Yes, I’m excited I repurposed a motor from Lucifer’s Leaping  Musical Spin Toy of Satan.  But confession:  I was one of those women who was convinced that robot, electrical, and computerized toys were designed with boys in mind.  These Lego robots weren’t exactly screaming my name:

But this girl looks genuinely excited, right?

Until I saw something I wanted to make, I was convinced I couldn’t.  My daughter is growing up in a country where for the first time a woman is running for president and a woman will adorn the $20 bill.  But what’s more important than those major accomplishments for me and my daughter is for her to see her mom try stuff and fail.  And try again, and fail again.  And then try one more time, and fail repeatedly until I have a working Scribble Machine that doesn’t do much but prove that I wanted to, so I did, tripping over myself along the way.  Maria wants to learn to ride a bike this summer.  And while I won’t be the one out there helping her, I want her to believe that she can and she will.

I see my own mother do this with her sewing.  I’ve seen her tinker and toil over stitches and fabrics and techniques until she creates something so unique, beautiful and truly one-of-a-kind. Like this (oops, stained) Doc McStuffin’s jacket:

Note:  Maria’s analysis of the Scribble Machine is still pending.  Will update with reactions and artwork.

Last weekend we took the beagles to the dog park.  Although they are small, and somewhat unassuming, Herbie seems to be able to hold his own when it comes to keeping up with the bigger dogs.  Here’s a 15 second snippet of the adventure:

Needless to say, the beagles were thirsty by the end of the trail.  Of  course the park was equipped with water at dog level, but for some reason, Herbie refused to partake.  This little hound had just ran his tail off, howling all the way but would not drink any of the water overflowing the canine-sized bowl available to him.

You can bring a beagle to water, but you can’t make him drink.

I made the joke on Facebook, “You can bring a beagle to water but you can’t make him drink.”  We use this phrase often as high school teachers (with “horses” obviously), but the sentiment is the same.  “I can’t teach a student who isn’t willing to learn.”  Now before we get defensive, I want to break this down a little.  I’m guilty as any of buying into this mantra at one time or another.

One of the best things to happen in my district is the adoption of a PLC model which requires that we not only reflect on how we teach but on what kids actually learned.  Simply bringing the horse (or beagle) to water is not sufficient (nor was it ever), but we now have a district-wide culture that supports students who reject the water the first time.  In my beagle example, Herbie was afraid of the giant yellow pump that was pouring water into the bowl.  When he got home, he was still thirsty and proceeded to slurp down the entire contents of his regular bowl on the floor in the kitchen.  I owe my dog another opportunity to drink water because, well, he’s a dog.  High school students, no matter how much we desire the contrary, are not adults.  They are children.  And sometimes they will reject learning the first time, and the second time (and sometimes repeatedly just to spite us).  But as educators, we owe them continuous opportunities for learning.

Well, it’s the first weekend of summer, and I’m coloring spirals and making beagle metaphors on my blog.  The next three months promise to be pretty fun.

I wanted to collect all of my spiral art on my blog.

Here is the document I used (spiralled numbers 1 – 1024)

Here’s the google doc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6QZoh9vKRK4Qm5DVkowTnRlYXM/view?usp=sharing

And here is what I’ve created so far.  Enjoy!

Link to Google Photos Album: https://goo.gl/photos/CzAQU8Q4AhRoBMBLA

Next up:  Hexagon grid spirals.

Update:

Some wonderful people on twitter have made these into pretty neat computerized visuals.  Here are some of my favorites:

John Golden:

https://www.geogebra.org/material/iframe/id/GNQDhzt8/width/566/height/560/border/888888/rc/false/ai/true/sdz/false/smb/false/stb/false/stbh/true/ld/false/sri/true/at/auto

GHS Mathematics Department:

Dan Anderson: