My Learning Adventures

I'm having fun working on my solar system project!!!

My name is Henry, and I'm in 3rd grade. My teacher's name is Mrs. Mackey, and she assigned each of us a planet for our solar system project. I got the planet Earth. We borrowed some books from the library to get more information about Earth and Mrs. Mackey showed us how to write a report about it. Another part of the assignment is to make a display that shows all the planets and the solar system.

My parents gave me some ideas that I can do to make this project fun. I can use some skills I have learned and also learn some new skills to complete this project. The idea was to make all the planets and put them on a black foam board and make some buttons that you can press to play videos about each planet. I know that this would take a lot of work. But I'm up for the challenge and I'm excited to do this project!

The first thing I did was to make planets out of clear ornament balls. It is an idea that came from making cool Christmas ornament balls with different colors. We saw some videos on YouTube on how to do them. I wrote down all my ideas (like what colors I want to use for each planet and what I wanted each video to look like) in a notebook to keep track. We poured paint into the balls and swirled it around in different patterns to make each planet.

It was really fun working on the planets! I can't believe how cool they turned out! Here are some tips to make it turn out well:

Make sure to always cover every inch of your planet, even the slightest blank spot will look bad (though I admit that I had some too). :(
Use the right colors! You don't want a blue Mars or a yellow Neptune!
Use metallic or satin paint. You can find them at Michael's. I used gunmetal for Mercury and it turned out great.
For Earth, you don't have to paint on the continents. Just put blobs of paint that look like them.
Finally, for Jupiter, put streaks of yellow and orange, but put blobs of red for the storms.

Here are some colors you can use for the planets!

Mercury: gunmetal, silver, black, white

Venus: orange, yellow

Earth: green, blue, white, brown

Mars: red, brown

Jupiter: red, orange, yellow, brown

Saturn: brown, orange, yellow

Uranus: light blue, blue, turquoise, green( use very little)

Neptune: blue, dark blue, royal blue, indigo, purple

Finally, use a big light and paint on red, orange, and yellow for the sun!

Another part of the project was to make buttons that played videos if you pressed them. The first step in this process was to record all the videos.

I made 12 videos in total ( the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth 1, 2, 3, and 4, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), and I used the app "Explain Everything" for that. It helps to plan the videos and make a storyboard before recording. Also, don't make the videos too long.

After that, I programmed the computer to play a certain video when a signal is sent that tells the computer that a certain key was pressed. Use a Makey Makey for this. This part will take some time and a bit of programming experience, so make sure (or get) familiar with two programming languages: JavaScript, and HTML.

Finally, I was ready to put everything together. First, I made a mock-up of the whole thing. This really helps you plan out everything. But, make sure you use a large, white piece of paper, especially if you're using black paper or foam for the real thing.

Make sure everything is precise and exactly where it's supposed to be. After that, you're ready.

Transfer the whole thing onto your black piece of foam board. I recommend using a black piece of foam, and get a tri-fold display board or extra foam, because you'll need it for later.

Then, draw lines on the board to mark where you want the orbit lines to go. Make sure to put dots, X's, or something else to mark where you want the planets to go.

Use hot glue to place down lights or glitter for the orbit lines. When I was placing the lines down, I was short of light length, so I used glitter for Mercury's orbit line.

When placing your planets, use a Xacto knife and a screwdriver to make notches. Don't forget to hot glue the planets in the hole!

Next, you have to strip wires that connect the buttons to the Makey Makey. When you're done with that, use sharpies to label the aluminum foil buttons (not the recycled type) and secure them with electrical tape. Put the wires under the buttons, and if the stripped part is too big, bend them a bit. Also, when you connect the wires to the Makey Makey, wrap them around the board, and secure them with tape.

After you've finished this, you might want to do some research on the Makey Makey to understand the rest of this. First, plug the wires into the Makey Makey and plug the USB cord into the computer. Then, try pressing the buttons. Make sure you make a "finger (ground)" button so that the program will work. It should work out well and play the desired videos. If it doesn't work, here are some tips:

Check the program. Is everything working right? Are there no errors?
Are the wires plugged into the right hole?
Is the board shaking? If it is, hold it in place. I'll show you how to make supports later.

Next, to keep everything in place, we're going to need to use the Makey Makey box. If the lights you're using have a box with its batteries, then you're going to have to put the box and the Makey Makey inside the Makey Makey box. It looks better when you wrap the box in black(or whatever color your board is) paper, so that it "blends in." After you're done wrapping the box, hot glue it and the sun to the board. Also, after wrapping the box, use a knife to cut a hole for the wires to go through.

You can also add these optional extras. I personally recommend adding them, because they look good and are fun to work with.

The first extra was adding rings. It is good to use foam for the rings, preferably gold and silver for Saturn and Uranus' rings. If you have an extra ornament of the same size as the planet you are making a ring for, then trace around it ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE FOAM and shape your ring around it. It helps to hot glue it to the planet.

For Uranus' ring, cut 1/2 of the ring, so that it looks vertical. Also,if you don't have an extra ornament the same size as the planet, then wrap string around the planet and cut it so that you have a shape.

The other extra was asteroids. You can use any kind of aluminum foil for this. Just scrunch the foil into little balls and hot glue them to the board.

If you're using a computer to display the videos, then you need to read this. I put the computer keyboard under the board to make it look more like a screen, but if the keyboard is under the board, then you need to build supports.

Remember when I said to get extra foam? You'll need that now. The first thing you'll need to do is to make supports to prop up the board over the keyboard. 2-3 stacked and glued boards should work, but it all depends on your computer.

After this, if you try pressing the buttons, it won't work. This is because the board is unstable! Next you'll need to put a large support in the front of the board. This should stabilize it.

I worked on this project for about 4 weeks (which turned out to be about 15-20 hours if I add up all the hours) But, I really enjoyed working on it! I hope you have fun with this! Some of the parts I really enjoyed doing were the programming part (I am familiar with JavaScript), messing with the lights, and painting the planets.

Here is a short video showing how the project works!

I hope this works out for you!