One of our goals with PreVu is to simply expose the kids to certain tools and ways of thinking, and to foster a can-do attitude about building in real life what they have in their imaginations.  This isn't always simple, since they can't quite use the power saw or model something in Rhino to send to the laser cutter. But sometimes they make some leaps. During session 5, Ben decided that he wanted to use toy motors. We taught him to solder so that his connections from the motor to the battery would hold. Suddenly, a whole lot of kids were interested in motors and soldering, and we saw an amazing passage of knowledge: kids teaching other kids what they had just learned minutes before.

I expect we'll see a lot of moving parts next week!

The studio is always busy during PreVu. Some kids are very active, making several individual projects, while others really enjoy working  on the collaborative project or even just watching how their fellow students are using materials and coming up with ideas. We find tremendous value in all of these modes of being in the studio, and hope that each kid is finding some design  inspiration each week.

We've been talking about animal habitats for the past couple of weeks. This week, we decided to try building a dwelling for Hoook, our class mascot that we made the first day. We first tried sketching some ideas, and then jumped right into trying different element placements and formations. The kids were timid about using the tools and raising the walls, but by the end they were taking turns with the drill, holding pieces in place for each other, and haggling out design decisions.

We introduced casting as a method that could make quick sculptural iterations. The kids used plaster of paris, and made molds from model magic. They embedded pipe cleaners to serve as a sort of rebar that they could then build upon. Of course, they also had a lot of fun making little critters out of model magic and pipe cleaners.

Owen has become the unofficial documentarian of PreVu. During almost every session, he picks up the camera and starts taking pictures of the studio, equipment, and other kids. We thought that for the last session we'd show his expert documentation.

During the last session of PreVu, we gave the kids a lot of freedom to choose what they would work on: previous projects or inspirations, or just some material or skill that they hadn't gotten to work with yet. We had a lot of toy motor building, some laser cutting, and a couple of winged creature outfits. We also kept working on habitat-building, this time making a structure with hula hoops and zip ties.

It has been a delight to see the students being so creative and learning so many new skills during the workshop. They were amazing junior designers!

Are you fascinated by a hawk’s wings, or intrigued by a turtle’s shell? Wonder how the scales of a snake move together? In this studio, designers will choose an animal to research, study their form and how they move, and then design and fabricate wearable art pieces in response to their findings!

Students will have the opportunity to develop ideas using hands-on modeling and making. They will also learn to use software and fabrication tools that allow for prototyping and iterating to hone their unique designs. They will learn to constructively support each other’s projects and work together to make a zoo-ey, zany final collection of animal-inspired wearables!

REGISTER HERE!

Focus Skills/Subjects/Technologies:

   Design

   Industrial Design

   Fashion Design

   Digital Fabrication (Laser-cutting, 3d Printing)

   Electronics

   Pattern-making

   2D & 3D Modeling

     Interaction Design

   Physics (Electricity, Magnetism)

   Engineering

   Programming

   Digital Art

   Digital Animation

   Storytelling, Storyboarding & Production

Prerequisites:

• Enrolling students must be between the ages of 5 to 7

REGISTER HERE!