"Lighting the Sky with Raspberry Pi", Connected, level 2, November 2018

14 November 2018

Students at Fernridge School have created a digital light display for Matariki using Raspberry Pi computers.

Night-lights as technological systems – These students made a plastic casing using their light design and created a circuit using LED lights.
Astronomy and e-textiles – These students created a digital display of their star signs using LED lights and a piece of embroidery.
Te Wairepo/York Stream focus – These students created an art display using the internet of things. The perspex fish changed colour depending on the water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels in the Te Wairepo/York Stream.
Höweler + Yoon's swing time illuminates Boston park – LED lighting within the swings is regulated by custom micro-controllers that signal their activity levels. This means when they are static, they emit a soft, white light and when in motion, they switch from white to purple.
Lighting with a digital and design focus – These students 3D printed a prototype of their light design.

These could include:

What are the components for these different lighting systems?
What are the inputs and the outputs for these lighting systems?
How does the lighting system transform an input into an output?
To make the LED lights flash the students had to programme the Raspberry Pi. What were some of the simple step-by-step instructions developed for this task? What debugging did they have to do on the program to make sure that the lights lit up in a sequence?

Component	Indicator	Level
Technological systems	identify the components of a technological system and how they are connected identify the input/s and output/s of particular technological systems identify that a system transforms an input to an output	2
Technological area	Progress outcome
Computational thinking for digital technologies	PO1: In authentic contexts and taking account of end-users, students use their decomposition skills to break down simple non-computerised tasks into precise, unambiguous, step-by-step instructions (algorithmic thinking). They give these instructions, identify any errors in them as they are followed, and correct them (simple debugging).

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