Lessons Learned By Ruining My SD Card

    I have learned my brain works like cement.  I have all the right ingredients to make a solid, firm foundation, but it takes awhile for that foundation to set and stay for a lifetime.  Just like cement, if I take a step in the wrong direction before the cement is solid, repairs will be needed.  I attended #Picademy and received the right ingredients to go forward with a solid foundation for teaching computing and digital making. I however went forward stepping in a few wrong directions before all the training had been cemented in.  The following tells you of the repairs I needed to make before I could have a solid foundation to work with.
    The first day of #picademy we were taught to take care of our SD cards. They mentioned to keep the SD cards away from magnets. Note-There is a lot of information saying magnets won't effect SD cards, because of the following story, I'm keeping my electronics and cards away from them. Just like a teenager, I allowed the information to come in but not cement into my head.  I came home excited to teach my children and we set to trying to fix an old LED tv to use as a monitor.  My 9 yr old and I were unscrewing the back of the tv and we couldn't get a small screw out of the back of it.  My child thinking outside the box, as usual, grabbed some neodymium magnets and put them next to the screw and pulled it out.  I continued working on the tv while he played with the magnets.  I told him to put them away, but since I was busy tinkering he decided he could get away with playing with them.  I distinctly remember him dropping the magnets right by my raspberry pi and saying, "Oops." I looked up and told him to go but the magnets away, not thinking that they could mess up my SD card, but because I wanted him to be obedient.
     Later that day a friend of mine who is a programmer stopped by.  I told him about #picademy and told him about our scare cam project.  I set up my pi to show him the programming and the functioning camera.  I plugged the pi in and had no boot up.  He mentioned that SD cards can get ruined easily especially by magnets.   LIGHTBULB moment!!!  My mind flashed back to my son dropping the magnets and saying oops.  The whole keeping SD cards from magnets was cemented in.  Unfortunately the hard way!
     Luckily, I had emailed the scare cam photo code to myself.  We pulled up the email and I showed the programmer the code that I had created. He asked me professional questions of why I wrote this or that. I told my friend,  I had no doubt that I could recreate the program in no time and he should come by again.  He said he would come by in a few days.
    I knew I needed to do more on the pi than just enter the code.  I knew I didn't have an SD card with Raspian installed automatically.  I would have to install Raspian on a new SD card.  I had a few at home and believed I had purchased them through a reputable source. I tried to install them but could only install the program and boot it up.  When I made changes to the SD card it would crash and not reboot.  I went to the pi forums and had an expert tell me to check my SD cards, twice.  Once again the #Picademy training was finally cemented in my brain.  I needed better SD cards.  I went to the store bought the cards they recommended at #Picademy. I flashed the cards, booted up the system, made the changes to the wifi country, local time, keyboard, etc. and the pi's booted up correctly.
   Although having the code was a great starting tool, I knew I would have to go back to the beginning. I would need to install the camera to the pi, download the sounds and code them, code a bush button, etc. After making sure I had the correct cards, I went to making the project again.  We had 4 hours to complete this at #Picademy. I had already coded a lot of programs on my SD card when I started the project.  Imagine my surprise when I finished and had my scare cam working again in an hour and a half's time. 
     As I was coding my project, I was thinking really how grateful it was that I had learned all of the above the hard way. As I move forward teaching in the library, I know not to store the hard work of the children by magnets.  I can give them a personal experience on how they should not keep magnets by their pi's.  I would hate to have a child invest hours into a project to have it all lost. I also learned to teach making a backup for work, because some things are out of our control.  I had a great starting point because I had emailed myself some code. I also redid everything I was taught at #Picademy, which was a test which helped me gain confidence in going forward and teaching teachers, children, and others in the future. If I can do it on my own without other computer science majors and #Picademy professionals, I can teach this to my local people.
    In summary the lessons I had by ruining my SD card:
1) Keep SD cards and pi's away from magnets (Ok, store them ALWAYS in a safe place)
2) It always is a good idea to have a backup of your projects stored elsewhere from your pi, especially if it is a large project you don't want to loose it. (Email them to yourself, it works great)
3) Make sure you flash the correct SD card
4) I was taught and given all of the above from #Picademy. I had excellent training.
5) I FAILed forward (First Attempt In Learning)
6) #Picademy means it when they have support for us after the training.  The professional raspberry pi users on the forums kindly helped me with even the basics to succeed in our learning.
    I knew #Picademy was a great opportunity when I applied to attend, I felt like I had a great learning experience when I attended #Picademy, It was cemented that #Picademy was the best PD training I had received in a long time when I came home and had to FAIL forward.
    It's okay I had the above experiences, it helped me repair my cement like brain and cure it for  some very basic but essential skills needed to continue teaching computing and digital making!