What's Been Going On In The Lab?

We have been busy in the Lab the past few months. This time of year brings a lot of projects...imagining, planning, making and improving. From third grade mini-society to sixth grade medieval faire and all the individual projects that take shape here, this is a quick recap of some of the things that were created.

Our religion teacher wanted to find away to remind her students how God see them. She found this mirror and wanted to put words in each section. She came to the Lab, learned how to use the vinyl cutter and this is what she made.

Sixth grade science again made catapults as part of the grade level unit that studies the medieval times. Here are some of the cut outs they designed and created on the laser cutter.

Speaking of studying the medieval times, our sixth graders also designed and made things for their medieval faire. Check out the next posting for some pictures of the finished products some of our student made.

After-school circuit class learned to create circuits using breadboards...before they get to design and create their own PCBs.

After-school making class had a lot of free making time, but they also got to create game controllers for Scratch games, using MakeyMakeys.

This second grader 3D printed a penguin during recess time. It took her 3 sessions to design it on Tinkercad but it was all worth the wait when it became "real".

We finished up the 3D printing for our fifth grade language arts students who were making articles and objects that they designed to go along with the underwater society from the book, "The Neptune Project." For more about this, look back at the blog post, "Fifth Graers 3D Design and Print for Language Arts Class"Fifth Graders 3D Design and Print".

Third grade creates a Mini-Society every Spring and this year they wanted to make money boxes. So after a few lessons on using Inkscape, they each designed their own box. It was laser cut out of cardboard and they put it together. They also designed business signs that were laser cut on wood.

A couple students used the Lab to create things they were going to sell at their business. Book makes made on the laser cutter.

Stickers made with the vinyl cutter. Along with the designing and creating, we talked economic concepts like supply and demand, price point, profit margin, etc.

We also finished up the first graders project of creating a mirror and window to use as they look for self-reflection and to reflect on new experiences the children are seeing for the first time. More about this project can be found in the post, "First Grade Language Arts and the Laser Cutter".