Intro to Basic Python App with ChatGPT

I spent a couple days figuring out how to make a good basic app with Python to have a conversation with ChatGPT so that I can teach it to my high school students. There are some good resources for novice coders to engage with machine learning and ChatGPT with blocks coding (Micro:bit , Scratch, App Inventor) but I could find no clear resources on getting started with text coding that don't require some deeper understanding of programming concepts to get reasonable results.

Alligator Clips in the Classroom Tip

How do you keep alligator clips from getting tangled up? I thought of this a few years ago and will never go back to my bin of tangled wires. It's so simple!

Learning to Solder Technique

I've been teaching middle schoolers to solder for years but I only came up with this approach to the workflow this year and it has been a game changer.

Milling PCBs in the Classroom, Updated Workflow

I'm continuing to teach high schoolers to design their own circuit layouts and mill the boards so they can solder them together and have their own custom hardware to keep. The microcontroller I use for these is usually an ATTiny 85, 84, Adafruit Metro Mini, or Raspberry Pi Pico, all relatively inexpensive. What follows is an easier workflow than I've outlined in previous posts.

Make Gears With Turtle Art

 

You can code gears with Turtle Art! If you have a fabrication machine such as a 3D printer, laser cutter, or CNC machine you can download the SVG file from a Turtle Art design to fabricate in your material of choice. Here is how I made these gears—5 and 10 inch in diameter—with a Fox Alien CNC machine.