Posted by Kristy Lundstrom, Head of Middle School on May 7, 2021

In 6th grade science class, students are not only playing.  They are also learning.

In a recent unit of study focused on electricity and magnetism, students built their own Operation Game.

To build their games, students followed the guidelines as laid out in KitHub.  As you know, in Operation, the goal of the game is to remove things like bones out of small openings without touching the edge of the opening. Like most things, it’s much more fun when you make your own!

Using an LED, a buzzer and other materials students made their own operation game. This was a great way to learn about parallel circuits. In a parallel circuit, each component has its own branch from the power source. If one piece breaks, the other one keeps on working. For this game, there are three branches: one for the buzzer, one for the LED, and one for the game pieces.

This process definitely involved design elements - form and function.  There was plenty of trial and error.

In the end, the final projects were amazing and functional!

When asked what they learned, students replied “you have to make sure that you connect the wires on the wire part to conduct electricity and not on the plastic cover or electrical tape”, “sometimes electronics don’t work like you want them to so you have to try again and see what mistakes you made” and “I learned about circuits and creativity.  It is actually pretty simple to make an Operation Game”.