Lesson 1: Innovations in Computing

This unit requires the Adafruit Circuit Playground. You can read more about this microcontroller board at https://code.org/circuitplayground

Video: Watch either The Internet of Things - Video or Computer Science is Changing Everything - Video as a class.

Group: Place students in groups of 3-4

Distribute: Hand out copies of the activity guide

Discuss: What is an innovation? What does it mean for something to be innovative?

This should be a quick discussion. The primary goal is for the class to come to a common understanding of what it means for something to be innovative. That it's not enough for a product to look sleeker than the last version, but that innovation means to really do something better than it's been done before, or to do things that have never been done before.

Computing Innovations

During this activity student groups will research the recent technological innovations related to a chosen topic. Once they have identified a few interesting innovations, they will choose one to analyze in greater depths and report back to the class about.

Innovation Research

• Introduce the topics: Make sure that students understand the scope of each of the potential topics.
  • Wearable Technology (eg. clothing, jewelry, or accessories with built-in computers)
  • Health and Safety (eg. devices that treat disease, track your health, or protect users from danger)
  • Agriculture (eg. technology to improve the effectiveness, sustainability, or efficiency of farming)
  • Manufacturing (eg. advancements in rapid prototyping, industrial robotics, and the production of goods)
  • Art and Design (eg. interactive art or public installations)
  • Smart Home (eg. devices that allow you to interact with your thermostat, locks, or lights using computers)
• Explain the research task: The goal of this research is twofold:
  • First, develop a deeper understanding of your chosen topic. How is computer technology changing this field, what are some of the problems that people are trying to solve with technology?
  • Second, identify a handful of innovative devices within this topic. Students should focus on finding hardware devices that demonstrate unique or novel form factors. That is to say, computers that don't look like computers.
• Send to Code Studio for resource links: On Code Studio we have compiled more detailed descriptions of the topics as well as couple of recommended sites to learn more about each topic. Use this as a jumping off point for student research.

Here are some recommended sites for students to start their research. Although these sites are generally appropriate for school, the content within them changes frequently, so we strongly suggest you check each site for inappropriate content before sharing it with students.

Wearable Technology

• Warable.com

Health and Safety

• Modern Healthcare
• Medstartr

Agriculture

• National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Farm Industry News

Manufacturing

• Industry Week
• 3D Printing

Art and Design

• ArtFab
• Instructables

Smart Home

• CNet
• IoT Evolution

An Innovative Solution

Once groups have selected a specific innovative device, they can complete the second page of this activity guide, which asks them to do the following:

• What Problem Does It Solve?: For some topics this may be more clear (for example healthcare devices typically have a very specific goal), but for others students may need to think more broadly about what they consider problems. More frivolous wearables or digital art installations may be more concerned with personal expression than solving a specific problem.
• What Is Innovative About It?: Encourage students to refer back to the earlier discussion about innovation for this. It can also be useful to compare against other devices found during the research phase.
• How Do You Interact With It?: Ask students to think back to the Input, Output, Storage, Processing model that was introduced way back in Unit 1. The goal here is to identify specifically the Inputs and Outputs provided by a given device - the more specific these are, the more easily students will be able to connect elements of the Circuit Playground to these devices.
• How Could You Improve It?: Feel free to make this as realistic or aspirational as you like. The goal here is just to get students thinking about how they might develop an innovation of their own by using an existing product as a jumping off point.

Share: Give groups a minute each to share their findings. See the extension activities for alternate ways to share.

Journal: What was the most surprising, cool, or impressive thing that you found in your research? If you could develop an innovation of your own, what would it be?

Ask groups to create a poster that shares the innovate device that they researched. Posters should include:

• Who invented the device
• What problem they were trying to solve
• Why it is unique or innovative
• How users interact with it (specifically, what Inputs does it take and how does it provide Output)

Keep these posters up throughout the unit for students to refer back to as they start to develop physical computing devices of their own.

Instead of (or in addition to) you posters, have students develop websites in Web Lab that include the same required content. Make sure that students include links to their source websites.