I had presented BigShot cameras at the teachers meeting at Udavi with the hope that someone will want to pursue it with grades other than 6th and 7th that I interact with.
It was interesting that the first opportunity presented itself through Biology. Geetha the teacher had mentioned that she was planning to take the children out on a field trip to the crocodile park and through it would be interesting to take a few cameras along. It didn't take long before she realized the utility of the children putting together the cameras rather than being given the cameras as it would be instructional and increase the ownership of the instrument during the trip.
As I had worked with these children the last year and they were a little older I gave them the option of watching us build it or building it themselves. I was not surprised when they came back with, we can do it ourselves. The children assembled the cameras at different paces. Most groups needed a little support when they came to the finer components of the camera lens.
Most groups went over the instructions and in most places these are supported well with images so the groups having a little difficulty also had support with the images.
The children enjoyed the session and then went out and took some pics of the school.
The next day they went to the crocodile park and took plenty of pics. The children sorted through some 100 odd pics from each camera and put together an album for me. I've put together a few of these pics that were non-overlapping.
The children also wrote about their experiences with the Bigshots camera. The children found the process demystifying. Some children found reading the manual the difficult part. Most found the actual assembly a lot easier than they expected. Almost everyone was thrilled and enjoyed the experience. At the crocodile park some ran out of charge quite fast (possibly because its not obvious how to turn off the display) and the hand crank kept getting stuck for them. Here are some of their experiences.
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