Our NuVuX schools have had an exciting start to the 2018-19 school year! From Woodstock Union High School and Middle School in Woodstock, Vermont to Episcopal School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to All Saints Academy in Lakeland, Florida, students are designing and building solutions to diverse challenges in their communities and abroad. 

We launched NuVuX three years ago to bring innovation and creative learning to schools and work with teachers and students on site at the schools. Three years later, we have 10 schools in the NuVuX Network - 8 schools based in the U.S. and 2 schools based internationally with 11 NuVu Fellows based on site at each partner school.

This Fall, we have around 50 studios in progress across the network. Studios include Morphing Playgrounds, Activist Installations, Hacking Public Spaces, Musical Objects and Upcycled Animals. Students range in age from 9 to 18 and are working on over 250 projects.

We're excited to be working with so many teachers and students across the different geographies. Here are a few soundbites from a couple of schools:

Woodstock Union High School and Middle School (Woodstock, Vermont)

"The studio, Rooted Installations, went to Kellyway Gardens which is an organic farm which provides produce, herbs, and decorations to the Woodstock Inn.  They work directly with the chefs of the Inn every year when planning what food to produce making cooking a more ecological pursuit.  The master gardener, Ben Pauly, gave us a tour showing how the growing process works from the useful mycelium in the soils to how they plan the large scale crop organization from year to year.  The students have begun to translate this type of localized food cycle into their installations, focusing on the ecological processes which are integral to it."

- Max Vanatta, NuVu Fellow @ Woodstock

Episcopal School (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

"Our entrepreneurship studio Creature Comforts is designing animal-related products for a local humane shelter and thinking about ways in which these devices can be adapted for the broader pet market. Creatures and caretakers from the Walker Animal Shelter will serve as clients for the students, wherein product ideas stem from the specific needs of animals in transitory and high-stress environments.

The Neuroplasticity and Design studio met with the Beck Visual Cognition Lab at LSU to learn about ways in which our bodies and minds are linked. This studio is looking at ways in which neuroplasticity can be harnessed to affect behavior and promote mental health on the school's campus. On Monday they'll be discussing neuroplasticity with Dr. Lara Boyd, a lead researcher in this field from Univ. of British Columbia's Centre for Brain Health."

- Dyani Robarge, NuVu Fellow @ Episcopal

Our NuVuX Network is expanding. This past week, two new schools joined our network: The Dalton School in NY and The Wheeler School in RI. The Dalton School partnership launches this Fall with our newest Architecture Fellow, Isabel Oyuela-Bonzani, joining our team. Isabel will be based at Dalton and leading their Architecture studio program across the four levels. Wheeler's programs will begin Fall of 2019, and we are working with the team to develop an immersive interdisciplinary program for their high school students. We are excited to be working with both schools and collaborating with teachers and administrators to create unique experiences for their students!

NuVu alumna Kate Reed who is now a student in the RISD-Brown dual degree program was featured in Brown University's "Stories of Impact." Read the article which discusses Kate's interest in creating mindfulness through music and movement. Kate began this project on musical prosthetics while she was a student at NuVu.

Mindfulness Through Music and Movement: SIF Kate Reed’s Vision of Musical Prosthetics

https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/swearer/mindfulness-through-music-and-movement-sif-kate-reed%E2%80%99s-vision-musical-prosthetics

"Musical Prosthetics are a new form of interactive media and tool for enhancing non-verbal communication. Newly created musical instruments are attached to the human body in various exoskeletal formations and wired with sensors that create sounds triggered by body movement. Each wearable sculpture explores a different human emotion. As performers inter act with each other and assume various body postures, the music creates a window into the non-verbal world.

These first three Musical Prosthetics express the primary colors of human emotion; sad, mad, and glad. When we are sad, we slump over, we try to make ourselves smaller, our faces wrinkle, we ring our hands, and we turn inward. When we are angry we are cocky, aggressive, and edgy. When we are happy we are joyous, gentle, playful and kind. Body movements and emotions can be exaggerated with these musical prosthetics, making the wearer’s inner emotions visible and audible, creating the opportunity for deeper communication."

Prosthetic Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b7G5WB9YPk&list=PLEoV2IJIZVKpGcd2x6c4ZHGIkoec81r8U

Challenging the boundaries of traditional education at summer camp in Glasgow

Piece on NuVu's Summer Program at Kelvinside Academy:
http://futurescot.com/kelvinside-camp-challenging-boundaries/

Please come to our Admissions Open House, Tuesday, September 25, 6:30 to 7:30pm, to learn more about NuVu Innovation School. The Open House provides an opportunity for prospective parents and students to learn about NuVu's studio curriculum and model, meet NuVu faculty and Admissions staff, as well as tour the studio space.

Please RSVP here.

We're in the last week of our Summer 2018 Program, and students are diligently working on their prototypes for this Friday's final presentations. It will be an exciting end to a summer filled with augmented games, cyborg enhancements, 3D printed food, battlebots, and futuristic pet fashion!

This year, we had over 300 participants across both our Futures Worlds program for middle schoolers and NuVu at MIT Design Studios for high schoolers. If we didn't see you this summer, we hope to see you next year. Stay tuned for details on our Summer 2019 theme and an array of exciting new studios.

Thank you to all the students for your enthusiasm, creativity, and passion in the studios. We look forward to next summer!

Via our NuVuX Initiative, we partner with schools around the world to bring design, creativity and innovation into schools and organizations. This year, we have 9 Fellows who will be traveling to our NuVuX partner schools around the U.S. and internationally to lead hands-on, studio-based experiences within schools and ignite students' passion. As the NuVuX Network expands, we are building exciting opportunities for schools within our network to connect with each other, develop student exchange opportunities, and collaborate on global initiatives .

At many of the NuVuX Schools, our Fellows are collaborating with teachers (such as Physics, English, Global Studies, Entrepreneurship teachers) to design and run hands-on studios.

By partnering with schools, we are creating a culture of change that is empowering students to think critically and design solutions for issues impacting their towns and communities.

Here's a quick intro into our spectacular Team of Fellows:

Max Vanatta, NuVuX Fellow at WUHSMS in Woodstock, VT
Aaron Laniosz, NuVuX Fellow at Odyssey in Los Angeles, CA
Ramzi Naja, NuVuX Fellow and Head of Innovation at NuVu-Karam in Turkey
Rima Das, NuVuX Fellow at Wonder in Wichita, KS
Asli Arpak, NuVuX Fellow at All Saints Academy in Lakeland, FL
Ray Majewski, NuVuX Fellow at All Saints Academy in Lakeland, FL
Chris Perry, NuVuX Fellow at Hillside School in Marlborough, MA
James Addison, NuVuX Fellow at Kelvinside Academy in Glasgow, U.K.
Dyani Robarge, NuVuX Fellow at Episcopal School in Baton Rouge, LA

We wrapped up the 4th year of our Innovation Camp for Educators last week. Over 80 educators from around the world joined us for a 5-day hands-on camp. Each week was filled with interactive discussions, workshops, project development, and immersion into our studio model. Teachers and administrators from our NuVuX schools also joined us over the last two weeks to begin planning for the Fall.

It's been an incredible start to the summer, and we look forward to the weeks ahead with our kids summer program!

We had our Spring Open House last week at our NuVuX partner, Hillside School, at their iLab. The event showcased students' projects from the Spring Semester studios, including Biomimetic Machines, Programmable Vehicles, Bugs, and Mechanical Animals, lead by our NuVuX Fellow Sofie Belanger.

Students at our NuVuX partner school, Episcopal School of Baton Rouge, installed their final products designed as part of the "McMains" studio from the Fall Semester. Over the course of this studio, students worked one-on-one with the McMains Children's Development Center in Baton Rouge. Lead by our NuVuX Fellow, Dyani Robarge, the studio focused on designing and building objects customized to the specific needs of those with Cerebral Palsy. The focus of the projects was on creative recreational play activities, such as gardening and artistic expression. The installations are now permanently installed on site at McMains and open to the community.