A sound investment for STEM/STEAM classrooms!
For Flashlight kit
A sound investment for STEM/STEAM classes! The design, engineering, manufacturing, instructions, and packaging are absolutely first rate! And you can find necessary CR2032 batteries at bargain prices in dollar stores or online (as low as $0.30) at Radio Shack.
But if you are a technology teacher on a budget, you may have trouble rationalizing $6 per student for a keychain light kit when you can buy a flashlight (some with multiple LEDs) for a dollar at a neighborhood store!
The future of technology in America (and public school education in that direction) depends on more than gadgets at the lowest possible cost and hit-or-miss design and quality. So make economics (and international politics) part of your lesson plan! Apply some critical thinking to side-by-side comparisons of product design, component costs, manufacturing, user support, as well as the role of consumer feedback in the product development/improvement cycle.
And as a practical matter, you can get a great deal of classroom “mileage” out of a simple-to-assemble flashlight (or pumpkin light, et al.) by examining the components individually, assembling the project on a breadboard, practicing soldering, etc., etc.
And to add some thinking to multiple student intelligences and hands-on skills development of a “simple” classroom STEAM project, how, by the way, would you “program” an LED to dim, brighten, or flash out "SOS" automatically as does the commercially successful (and more expensive) USA-made "Photon Freedom Micro LED keychain flashlight"? And if you are interested in environmental or forensic sciences, could you modify your flashlight kit for ultraviolet (UV) or infrared (IR)?
