We had a busy first day! A lot of returning students jumped right in, while some new kids seemed to hang back and watch the action, figuring out what this design studio was all about. We got our feet wet with researching, connecting, sewing, collaborating, and presenting our work. 

The shop has been a lively place so far this term. A lot of kids are interested in using the tools, particularly the drills and saws. They are also fascinated by all the bins tucked away in the shop cabinets, and have been finding bearings (oh, the fidget spinners!), suction cups, straws and other treasures to incorporate into their work.

We continued our animal research this week, and tried to talk about how we could be inspired by the animal features to make a material exploration. Some of the kids made the leap into abstracting shapes and working with materials that reminded them of their chosen animal. 

Our group project this week was to look carefully at an elephant trunk and try to create something that captured its flexibility and shape. The students did an amazing job, using laser cut sections, wood elements, balls, and panty hose to recreate the elephant. And, of course, they wanted to make the rest of the elephant too, including the ears and grey body. There was a lot of idea-testing, hot glue, and pride in the studio today! 

The  Prevu students got really involved in the collaborative  project this week: making stop-motion animations using the creatures they were making and props from the studio. The coordination of these videos’ production was amazing to see. They deligated roles-- one kids was in charge of pressing the button to take the next photo, another was imagining the whole story arc, and another was moving the characters for each frame. They are excited to continue the series and see what other adventures Willie the whale might have. 

The kids have been devouring materials as we introduce them. They loved using the laser cutter this week to make some modular pieces that could be connected to form different animals and features. They were up and running on the sewing machines. We started playing with light circuits and LEDs that might show up in some of their wearable projects. And, Alana had an excellent lesson introducing arduinos to some of the students that have been  begging to make robots. We were all so impressed that the students understood the basics of this challenging material, and were anxious to think about what else they could do for next steps (Build a remote control robot airplane! Make a hydrolic pump moveable robot hand!).

We are halfway through our sessions, and Are so exciting to see what the kids come up with in the second half!

Since it's Halloween week, we decided to make a room-sized spider web!

We showed the students some precedents of biomimicry in products and buildings today. They had a great time guessing which animal had inspired each object (they disproportionately guessed armadillo for some reason). We’re hoping to inspire some of the students to think of ways  to represent the inspiration from their animal research without making a direct copy or costume of its features. 

At the end of each class, we spend around 10 minutes looking at each other's work. It can be  hard to transition from finishing up projects to talking about them, and often the projects are being frantically completed while the review begins. Once we settle in, the kids always seem really proud when they show their work to each other, and respond to compliments and comments thoughtfully. 

The kids were tasked with inventing a creature together, and then designing and creating its features. They chose a porcupine-bat-lion-snake-wolf-bird hybrid animal. While some kids hand-sewed some beautiful feathers, others worked to build the body from cardboard. Some decided that pipe cleaners could be pushed into the top to make spikes. In the last 10 minutes of making, there was a mad dash to paint the creature, and almost every student was working to complete the creature in time. They were amazing collaborators, truly working together to make their ideas come to life!

In the review, they decided to name their creature 'Hooook,' and did an excellent job of talking about its features and the process of making it together.