Lessons

Welcome and Introductions

Course Overview

Maker's Lab is an opportunity to explore the materials, tools and ideas that are interesting to you and your team. Most of the time you will be working collaboratively with a partner or small group. We will spend the first few days, and time every week, doing team building games and activities. Everyone on the team has a gift or skill to offer. When we work together we can accomplish amazing things!We will spend the first few weeks exploring materials and tools. That means we're going to play with a lot of different stuff. I won't be telling you what to make or do or think. We will come up with general themes together and I will be sharing lots of ideas with you to get you inspired to have your own ideas.

Create a Maker's Lab Log Book 

Here are the rules:

1.  4 blank pages for ideas.
2. "Explorations and Projects" page
3. Quiet Reflections page
4. Cover Design

 We Are Makers! Ted Talk

Tinker Time: 

• Explore with the materials available at your table. 
• You will typically dismantle what you create. 
• What did you learn about these materials?

Assign Storage Slots
Art Room Scavenger Hunt

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Day Three -Five

Quiet Reflection Worksheet

Respond in Box #1: Imagine a machine you could invent and build to solve a problem. What would it look like? What problem would it solve? Draw a picture or describe in words.

Tribute to Theo Jansen

 Theo Jansen's Strandbeests

CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGE: 

create a TEAM NAME "table sign" with the materials supplied

1. Team name may use only letters found in your first names. 
2. Sign must have 3 dimensions of height, depth and width of at least 8 inches in any one direction
3. Sign must be bigger than an apple and smaller than a basketball
4. Sign must be constructed to stand on the table.
5. Sign must have at least one (1) moving part!

Closing: Fill out box 2, Maker's Lab Explorations Sheet

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Day 6-8

Quiet Reflection: Describe the challenges and successes of creating your group table sign.

1. Lesson: Introduce A Nation of Makers Site. Scroll down home page to see how to join from home if interested.
2. Scroll all the way down to More Makers Opportunities and click on Fashion Workshop blue arrow.
3. Read paragraphs 1-3 aloud.
4. Scroll Down to  Fourth paragraph and click on link "Gravity of Light" watch the vimeo video. Discuss

TINKER TIME!
Select a tub for your table,
Explore. Theme: Antarctic ice shelf crack - 17miles long.
Work as a TEAM to create a single structure, object etc.
Remember you will take apart what you make.

Maker's Lab Studio: Make progress on projects started last week.
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Day 9
Meet this Maker: Michigan Caribbean Mardi Gras Costume Designer

IDEAS: Make Magazine

Continue with your self selected projects. Friday is Show and Tell day!
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Day 10
Quiet Reflection: What do you see in this image? Respond in words, pictures or both.


1. Blind Line Exercise: 
Work with a partner.
Draw lines and marks according to the directions given: In the upper right corner make a small blue curvy line. In the lower left corner make a zig zag green line. On the right side of your paper make a black line that crosses over itself in two places.
Pass paper to the right.
Create something recognizable based on the marks on the paper you have received. Don't forget to look at your paper from all angles.
Share and Debrief: What surprises you?

2. In-Process Project Show and Tell

3. Maker's Lab studio

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You Guys know our classmate Ethan.

Here he is with his cool creation using only paper and scissors.

 

Ethan used simple materials and tools to create an experience about a complicated idea. In this simple paper flower Ethan gets us to think about Perspective and how we see things from different points of view.That's interesting! The ability to solve complex problems with simple, available and inexpensive materials and tools is really important to bettering the lives of people all around the world. This concept is called JUGAAD in India. Let's watch this video about JUGAAD.

Navi Radjou has spent years studying "jugaad," also known as frugal innovation. Pioneered by entrepreneurs in emerging markets who figured out how to get spectacular value from limited resources, the practice has now caught on globally. Peppering his talk with a wealth of examples of human ingenuity at work, Radjou also shar

Navi Radjou: Creative problem-solving in the face of extreme limits

https://youtu.be/cHRZ6OrSvvI

Group Activity:
Form small groups of three.  
Using only scissors and lined paper create something. That's all! You can make something that's funny or silly or beautiful or useful or interesting or communicates a big idea. It's totally up to you and your group mates! But, I encourage you to create something new that you've never seen made out of paper before (for instance, try not to just make a paper airplane or paper football. What else can you do to or with the paper?)

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What is Creativity?
Describe or define.
Let's watch this explanation
Is it scary to create stuff?
Are you AFRAID of creating?
Does Creating mean making things? What other ways are there to be creative? Here's a bigger definition.

Opener: What is color? Discuss and Define with your seat mates.

1. RoyGBiv, AKA the rainbow. Demonstration with a prism if weather conditions allow.
2. Pastels, mixing madness. Can you make the rainbow?
3. Creative Color Wheels group (3)constructions and painting project
4. Brainstorm ideas
5. 2D?
6. 3D?

Puppets!

TedTalk: Handspring Puppet Co.: The genius puppetry behind War Horse

Squishy Circuits
Tedtalk: AnnMarie Thomas: Hands-on science with squishy circuits

Quodcopters
Raffaello D'AndreaTedtalk:The astounding athletic power of quadcopters