Work Experience Day 1

My first day of work experience with UK STEM is now coming to a close and it’s been an amazing day!

Firstly, at 9:00 I had a meeting with Beckie Cargill who was a great help and is an associate at the company. She answered all my questions in detail and supported me when I asked for extra meetings. Then, I got to know the crumble and this was when I made my beloved police car. I had used the program a little beforehand (because the package arrived early) but I really polished off some of my sparkle and motor skills in this period whilst trying out the sensor.

The next order of business was setting up this site, which I ran a little late on but caught up soon enough. WordPress was really easy to set up and I thank the team for their suggestion. I have tried other website programs before but always struggle to find my ideal layout.

After this, I set out on the adventure of creating a new water feature for the Crumble Cookbook 2. My initial idea was to make a light-up water fountain and I started off with just the pump in a tray of water, wired up to the crumble and battery. A simple go command was enough to make it shoot into the air and seeing this I knew my idea could work. Then, I added some sparkles (LEDs) on a tray with bubble-wrap folded over them underneath. Luckily, the bubble-wrap worked and I didn’t harm any of them.

Next, I knew I had to look for something for the water to flow over so I went to my recycling pile and retrieved a handy-looking lemonade bottle. I cut it in half and put the pipe – which I had already put on the pump – through the top. I also made a hole in the side to be able to link up the pump wires. However, it wouldn’t stay straight and went really slowly. I think this was because I didn’t cut the pipe so I finally made the decision to do so. Then, it worked better but still wouldn’t stay straight, which meant it dragged the pump over and looked rather odd. So, I was back on the hunt for a holder.

The kitchen seemed like a good place to start so I went into mine and soon found a funnel. “Everyone has a funnel,” I thought “so if this works then everyone can build it, which is good.” I walked back over to experiment and it fit the pipe perfectly! This meant I had to put the wire out the bottom not the side but this still worked well. Lastly, I walked back over to my computer and programmed the crumble to switch the lights on and off for a cool effect.

Finally, I plugged it back into the circuit, turned it on and voilà! It worked! I am really happy how it has turned out so far and hope to add some more challenging features to the code tomorrow.

I then realised I could take the motor out of the forever loop so it didn’t keep being reminded of what it was already doing.

Goodbye for today!