Maker Challenge brings technology and creativity to Homecoming week

Students, faculty, and staff pose with their miniature homecoming floats.

The School of Education marked Iowa State’s homecoming week with a Maker Challenge activity celebrating innovation and technology. On Wednesday, students, faculty, and staff gathered in the Lagomarcino Hall atrium to showcase handmade miniature homecoming floats, each one pulled across the floor by a small robot.

Participants designed and decorated their floats to represent School of Education clubs or programs, or to reflect Iowa State’s homecoming theme, “Lights! Camera! Cyclones!” The challenge encouraged future teachers to create, collaborate, problem-solve, and think critically—skills they’ll use to design similar activities in their own classrooms.

The robots that carried each float came from Iowa State’s Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching (CTLT), a space where education students experiment with the latest technologies used in PK-12 classrooms.

“In Iowa, schools are required to teach computer science, so our future teachers need to graduate with some knowledge on the subject,” said Denise Schmidt-Crawford, education professor and CTLT director. “That’s where we came up with the idea for this activity.”

Maker Challenge participants had to think creatively on multiple levels, designing their floats, coding their robots’ movements, and collaborating to bring the miniature parade to life.

“This was a good teamwork exercise,” said Emily Xiao, a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant for the course Educational Technologies in the PK-6 Classroom. “We each had different tasks and communicated with each other during the process.” Xiao worked with fellow graduate student and teaching assistant Zarina Wafula to build their float.

For many, the challenge offered inspiration for their future classrooms.

“I would incorporate this kind of activity by making it a fun math lesson,” said Rachel Abbott, a senior in elementary education. “If we’re learning measurements, their float would have to be a specific width, length, and height. It’s a great way to keep students engaged and give them something new and fun to do.”

“These activities teach kids creativity, technology, planning, and engineering,” added elementary education junior Julia King.

The Maker Challenge gave education students a chance to explore how technology can enhance learning, equipping them to bring innovation into their future classrooms.

Contact

Denise Crawford, School of Education, dschmidt@iastate.edu

Sarah Igram, College of Health and Human Sciences, sigram@iastate.edu