The Yenka blog

New chips in Yenka

Today, we've released an upgraded version of Yenka.  You can now use Yenka Technology's simulation tools to build PICAXE 08M2, 14M2 and 20M2 microcontroller chips into your circuits.  

Posted at 03:25PM Sep 30, 2011 by Dominic  |  Comments[2]

New this week in Yenka: drive the Roland MDX-40

This week, we've uploaded a new Windows version of Yenka. It contains powerful new features for Yenka Technology.

When designing PCBs, Yenka can now drive a Roland MDX-40 milling machine to manufacture your circuit board directly.

Once you've routed the board, and you're happy with the design, simply click the "mill PCB" button.

Yenka suggests default settings, such as the tools to use, the engraving depth and the clearance - but you can customise all of the settings yourself, if you wish.

Before milling, you'll see a preview, with possible problem areas highlighted.

Yenka then gives you step-by-step instructions for milling the board, including when to change tools and when to remove the board.

If you wish, you can also output to a file, as RML-1 or NC Code (G-code).

If you're already using Yenka in your school, you can download the new version and upgrade free of charge.

Posted at 12:11PM Apr 07, 2011 by Dominic  |  Comments[2]

Get Absorb Physics free for your school

Some news about a short, but very good, special offer.

We've recently launched a website with free mathematics games, called Sumdog. We want lots of schools to try it out, but most of the teachers we know cover science and technology, not mathematics.

So we're asking teachers to invite their colleagues in the mathematics department to try Sumdog; in return, we'll give the school a free unlimited site licence for Absorb Physics - worth UK £400 (US $640). This offer is open until 30 April 2011.

Absorb Physics is a complete introduction to physics, with 102 lessons built around interactive animations, simulations and questions. We've only got a limited number to give away, so please hurry.

Here's what to do...

To get your free site licence for Absorb Physics:

First, your mathematics teacher needs to...

• Sign up for a free Sumdog teacher login
• Set up free logins for the students in their class;
• Get at least 15 students to log in and play a Sumdog game.

Then, you need to...

• Fill in this form, to tell us your school name and the mathematics teacher's Sumdog username;
  
• We'll confirm your eligibility, then reply with your login details for Absorb Physics.

 Thanks for taking part!

Posted at 11:15AM Feb 10, 2011 by Dominic  |  Comments[1]

Become a partner school - and get Yenka free

To help us improve Yenka, we're now recruiting Partner Schools around the world.

As a Partner School, you'll get a free licence to use our Yenka software throughout your school. In return, all we ask is that you commit to use it in your lessons, and write us a short report on how it went.

We'll also need permission to mention the partnership, and selected comments, on our website, so other schools can see how real teachers use Yenka, and what they think of it.

If you're a teacher who is interested in being a partner, please complete our application form, and tell us about yourself. Please be aware, though, that we've got a limited number of places, and we already have partner schools in some regions - so we won't be able to accept every application.

Posted at 11:35AM Jan 28, 2011 by Dominic  |  Comments[0]

Meanwhile, over at Sumdog... some end-of-year fun

Over the past few months, we've also been working on Sumdog - our new website with free mathematics games.

Sumdog's games are free, and always will be.  They're ideal for some educational end-of-year fun. 

Recently, we've added a couple of new ones.  Tower Climber is our users' favourite so far, closely followed by Street Racer and Alien Invaders. They're all multiplayer, and let you practise any of Sumdog's 100 topics.

We've also added a range of new teacher tools. Once you sign up as a teacher (which is free, and only takes a minute), you'll be able to set competitions and challenges for your students.
 
In a Sumdog competition, students take part by playing the free maths games. Their efforts are shown on a leaderboard.
 
Sumdog's challenges let you set a goal for your students to complete, such as getting a set number of answers right, or winning a number of Sumdog games.

You can specify which topics the students work on, which games they can play, and when your activity starts and finishes.

There's also a new "Play Class" option, which lets your students compete against their classmates, and prevents anyone else from joining the game.

However, we're not stopping there. In the next few weeks, we've got some exciting new games in the pipeline. You'll be getting the chance, for example, to use your mathematical skills to make furry things go very very fast.

Find out more about Sumdog's features, or sign up for your free Sumdog login.

Posted at 12:23PM Dec 16, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[8]

Yenka - a maths and science lab on your desktop

We've found a nice review of Yenka that's been published by Educational Freeware, a great site packed with information about free educational software.

Although schools normally need to buy a licence to use Yenka, it's available free of charge to use at home, which is why educational-freeware.com decided to take a look at it. They said:

The most important question any parent or teacher has about any educational software product is now much it actually informs or teaches.

Luckily, Yenka succeeds in this regard. In every section, there are both online and offline areas where students can make use of valuable lessons and explanations.

They then look at some of the different modules in Yenka:

The statistical product within Yenka is very impressive. It includes areas where you can graph out actual data frequencies and distributions, put together presentations, build charts and graphs, and best of all you can play one of the long list of probability games that teach important statistics concepts.

...and, in the science section, they find that

there are volumes of lessons, instructions, and "hands-on" interactive features where kids will feel like they're sitting in a laboratory running real tests and experiments.

 One of the main things they like is Yenka's high levels of interactivity:

This lets the student tweak values and test out different ideas just like a real scientist would. Below the animation, the scrolling text walks the student through the lesson and explains the experiment and what the results mean.

The full evaluation is available at http://www.educational-freeware.com/freeware/yenka.aspx.

If you've not already done so, you can get your free Yenka home licence here.

Posted at 10:33AM Dec 07, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[9]

Using Yenka's 3D tools in the classroom: a case study

A nice case study, showing Yenka in use in the classroom, has been published by Vital (a professional development programme for English schools, aiming to use ICT to add value to lessons and engage learners).

The study was written by Peter Ransom, working at the Mountbatten School, in Romsey. He says:

In Year 7, it is hard for learners to visualise the size of relative dimensions, especially when one side is more than 10 times another. In my attempt to resolve this issue, I have used the Yenka 3D software from Crocodile Clips to allow all learners the opportunity to see and manipulate 3D cuboids as well as create their own.

His lesson makes use of Yenka's modelling tools to allow the pupils to learn by investigating and experimenting:

Through group discussion and experimentation (you can enter the values of the dimensions or drag an edge of the cuboid) a variety of cuboids with an equal volume can be discovered. Instant feedback and visual confirmation are vital to enhance understanding and this is provided for the learners by the software. Displaying the different cuboids on one plane encourages learners to compare and contrast the properties of the shapes.

They created their own challenges - “can you make it even longer?” - which led the learners to deal with dimensions which had decimal values and in doing so started to develop an understanding of inverses, ratios and identities.

Peter concludes

I really enjoyed this lesson – learners were engrossed and there was no problem with the software – it was intuitive to use and I found it did what I wanted it to. It also allowed the mathematics to be developed and confirmed the need for learners to visualise in order to understand.

The full case study, with screenshots, is published on Vital's website. You'll have to register (free of charge) to read it, but this will also let you access many more useful resources from the Vital site. Many thanks to Peter Ransom for the fascinating insight into his lessons, and to Fiona Henry at Vital for letting us know about it.

Posted at 01:51PM Nov 05, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[2]

New subsystem block tools in Yenka Electronics

This week, we've added some new tools to Yenka Technology's electronics simulation.

Yenka's subsystem blocks let you design circuits using simplified inputs, processes and outputs. Each one hides a small section of the circuit, so that (for example) you don't need to know how to wire up an amplifier to learn about how one is used in a circuit.

At the top of each block, you'll see two buttons. Click the one on the right to open a pop-up window showing the circuitry inside that block. You'll see it's simulating live, so you can watch what happens as you interact with controls elsewhere in the circuit.

To the left is the "explode" button. Click this to expand the subsystem block and place its circuitry into your system as components. You can use this to expand a set of subsystem blocks step-by-step into a full circuit design.

This new functionality is available for all users in Yenka 3.2.7. If you already have a licence to using Yenka Technology or Yenka Electronics at school, you can download this upgrade free of charge.

Remember, too, that both students and teachers can use Yenka completely free of charge at home.

 

Posted at 10:20AM Oct 11, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[8]

Crocodile Clips' summer offer extended

We've decided to extend our summer offer for UK schools - which had been due to close on 20 June - for a few more weeks.

From 3 May to 31 July 2010, site licences for our Yenka Technology and Yenka Science products are discounted by 50%.  Upgraders from Crocodile Physics, Chemistry or Technology can get a further 25% off the offer price.

Yenka Technology lets you design and test electronic circuits, including PIC or PICAXE chips which you can program using flowcharts. 

Once you're happy with your circuit, Yenka will automatically convert it to a 3D PCB simulation, from which you can export the PCB design for classroom manufacture.

Until 31 July, UK schools can buy a Yenka Technology site licence for £300 + VAT (upgrade £225).

Yenka Science offers a range of virtual labs, which let you simulate experiments safely and easily.

On the physics side, they cover electricity and magnetism, light and sound waves, and motion; on the chemistry side, inorganic and physical chemistry and electrochemistry.

Until 31 July, UK schools can buy a Yenka Physics site licence for £300 + VAT (upgrade £225), and a Chemistry site licence for £225 + VAT (upgrade £168.75).

There's more information about ordering here.  If you have any questions, please contact us.

 

Posted at 11:51AM Jun 17, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[2]

Crocodile Clips' summer offer for UK schools

From 3 May to 20 June 2010, we're running a special summer offer for UK schools.  Site licences for our Yenka Technology and Yenka Science products are discounted by 50%.

Yenka Technology lets you design and test electronic circuits, including PIC or PICAXE chips which you can program using flowcharts. 

Once you're happy with your circuit, Yenka will automatically convert it to a 3D PCB simulation, from which you can export the PCB design for classroom manufacture.

Until 20 June, UK schools can buy a Yenka Technology site licence for £300 + VAT.

Yenka Science offers a range of virtual labs, which let you simulate experiments safely and easily.

On the physics side, they cover electricity and magnetism, light and sound waves, and motion; on the chemistry side, inorganic and physical chemistry and electrochemistry.

Until 20 June, UK schools can buy a Yenka Physics site licence for £300 + VAT, and a Chemistry site licence for £225 + VAT.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Posted at 04:53PM May 06, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[1]

05/03/10: histograms, capacitors and NAND gates

This week, there's another updated tool in Yenka Statistics.  The histogram updates live as you edit your dataset, and displays either equal or unequal class intervals.  We've also got a couple of electronics lessons for you, for use with Yenka Electricity and Magnetism or Yenka Electronics.

If you've not already got Yenka Statistics, or any of our other Yenka products, you can get a free licence to try out the lessons. You'll need to download the latest version to use the new simulations.

Histograms - unequal class intervals

Made with Yenka Mathematics - (Statistics)

Yenka Statistics now offers a new histogram tool, which lets you plot data with either equal or unequal class intervals.

In this model, a histogram with unequal class intervals displays the heights of the students in the animated line-up. It lets you understand how frequency density is used draw a histogram, and use this to work out how many people are over a given height.

Use the histogram to check your answers, and alter the class grouping. Practise this activity again using a new random sample.

Capacitor charge and discharge curves - current

Made with Yenka Science - (Electricity and Magnetism)

In this model, a graph shows the change in current as a capacitor is charged and discharged.

Change the position of the switch in the circuit to charge or discharge the capacitor and watch how this changes the current flowing through it.

Click the capacitor, the battery or the resistor to edit the capacitance, the voltage or the resistance, respectively, and see how it affects the graphs.

Combining logic gates

Made with Yenka Electronics

In this model, you're challenged to build a circuit using only NAND gates, which will function in the same way as a sample circuit which uses an AND gate, a NOT gate and an OR gate. There's an introduction to combining logic gates in this model.

Yenka Electronics lets you simulate your own circuits freely, building them up with  over 100 types of component - most of which have editable parameters.

Posted at 04:36PM Mar 05, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[0]

25/02/10: new statistics lessons, and electrical power loss

This week we've got some new lessons for teaching maths.  We've been adding new tools to Yenka Statistics, to let you experiment easily with graphing and handling data. We've also got a lesson made with our new Electricity and Magnetism simulator.

If you've not already got Yenka Statistics, or any of our other Yenka products, you can get a free licence to try out the lessons.

Plotting scatter graphs

Made with Yenka Mathematics - (Statistics)

Yenka Statistics lets you create and edit datasets easily.  As well as typing in data, or importing from spreadsheets like Excel, you can add data by clicking on the scatter graph - each time you click, a new data point is added.

When you add a graph to the screen, such as a histogram, it automatically starts graphing your data.  Yenka Statistics updates all of the graphs and charts on the screen as you edit data. 

Click a point, bar or entry in the data table, and the same data point will be highlighted in all of your charts and tables.

Relationship between height and arm span

Made with Yenka Mathematics - (Statistics)

In this model, Yenka lets you enter data for the height and arm span of students in your class - so you can check whether a correlation exists between the two measurements.

Yenka Statistics lets you add a line of best fit to your scatter graph.  The software will draw the line for you, as well as giving you the type and strength of correlation, and the correlation coefficient.

Power loss and transformers

Made with Yenka Science - (Electricity and Magnetism)

In this model, made with our new 3D electricity simulation, you can experiment with a simple power distribution grid, and learn why higher voltages are better for transmitting electrical power over long distances.

Yenka Electricity and Magnetism lets you build your own 3D distribution grids, choosing from a range of power stations and consumers, and setting key parameters like power output, transformer ratio and power line resistance.

Posted at 01:11PM Feb 26, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[3]

18.02.10: Loops, Le Chatelier and Diffraction

This week we've got three more new simulation-based lessons for you to try with Yenka.  If you've not already got the Yenka products we've used to make them, you can get a free licence to try out the content.

Programming Loops

Made with Yenka Computing - (Sequences)

In this model, you can learn about programming loops by controlling a dancing boy. Arrange flowchart commands to make him complete a looped sequence of dance moves - and then choose your own dance steps to customise the routine!

We created this with Yenka Sequences - which is completely free to use in school, as well as at home.

Le Chatelier's Principle - Temperature

Made with Yenka Science - (Inorganic Chemistry)

In this simulation, you can apply Le Chatelier's principle to the equilibrium reaction of ammonium chloride. Change the temperature of the reaction and observe the changes in the volume of gases to deduce whether the forward or reverse reaction is endothermic.

Wavelength and Diffraction

Made with Yenka Science - (Light and Sound)

In this model, a radio transmitter is broadcasting a signal which is being detected by a hut on the other side of a hill. By changing the wavelength of the signal, you'll find that it can be diffracted around the hill so that the signal is stronger at the hut.

Posted at 12:00PM Feb 18, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[3]

New from Yenka: composite shapes, reactivity of electrodes and circular motion

Some more new whiteboard lessons for you to use with Yenka.  If you've not already got the Yenka products we've used to make them, you can get a free licence to try out the content.

Circular motion (changing direction)

Made with Yenka Science - (Motion)

Simulate circular motion using a ball on the end of a rod. Observe the direction of the tension force, and then change the ball's velocity to see the effect this has on the direction of the centripetal force.

Reactivity of electrodes

Made with Yenka Science - (Electrochemistry)

Use a voltmeter to measure the voltage across a simulated electrochemical circuit. Change the metal electrodes and look at the resulting voltage to work out the order of reactivity of the metals.

Areas of composite shapes

Made with Yenka Mathematics - (3D Shapes)

Introducing composite shapes, looking first at composite shape made up of a rectangle and a triangle. You can use the areas of these shapes to calculate the area of the composite shape, and then use Yenka to make your own composite shapes.

Posted at 04:50PM Jan 22, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[0]

This week's activities: solubility & temperature, focal length and weighted coins

Happy new year!  We've got some more new activities for use with Yenka.  This week's activities are...

Solubility and Temperature

Made with Yenka Science - (Inorganic Chemistry)

In this model you can dissolve chemicals in water until the solution is saturated, and use the mass of dissolved chemical to calculate its solubility at different temperatures.

Focal Length of a Converging Lens

Made with Yenka Science - (Light and Sound)

In this model, you can investigate the effect of changing the focal length of a lens by comparing three converging lenses with different focal lengths. Choose the correct lens to focus the image on the screen.

Weighted Coin

Made with Yenka Mathematics - (Statistics)

In this model, you can learn how to calculate an estimated probability using a weighted coin game. Investigate the relationship between the accuracy of the estimate and the number of trials.

Using the activities

To use these classroom activities, you need Yenka installed on your computer.

• If you've not already got your free Leader in Technology licence, sign up here.
• If you prefer, you can also open these activities with the free home licence, the 15-day school trial, or with the full school version of the relevant product.

Then simply click the link and open the activity you want, and start experimenting!

Posted at 02:41PM Jan 08, 2010 by Dominic  |  Comments[0]