Schedule, Nov 16 – Nov 24

	Mon, Nov 15	Tues, Nov 16
Other notes		11:00 All-Staff Meeting Fixed Agenda Items: Blog Highlights Most memorable moments from the week Next Week What’s our game plan for Week 4 of the cycle?
Northside		<>3:30 Northside Get the crew here on Saturday for Chain Reaction Sculpture building <>Talk to Mary, Wendy, and Santiago about niching out time in their teen-room routine for Design IT Megan, Saafir
Panther
ALA 1		4:00 ALA gaggle Chain Reactions 5 Introduce Christmas lights and buzzers to their simple circuits Jonathon, Karie, Gabe
ALA 2.1
ALA 2.2
	Wed, Nov 17	Thu, Nov 18
ALA 2.2 morning	9:40 At Museum Chain Reactions 6 Introduce Crickets with simple sensor inputs in chain reactions. Start building input/output components for chain reactions. Jonathon, Megan
ALA 1 afternoon murder	12:45 At Museum Jonathon, Bill Storytelling 2
ALA 2.1 afternoon gaggle	11:40 At Museum Chain Reaction Sculptures 1 Saafir, Myles	<>3:30 At ALA Chain Reaction Sculptures 7 Introduce Logoblocks! Jonathon, Gabe
Panther	3:30 At Panther Myles, Gabe Saafir,
Northside		3:30 (at the Museum) Chain Reaction Sculptures Megan, Karie
Other notes
	Fri, Nov 5	Sat, Nov 6
Northside	At Northside Open Studio Nick
Panther	At Panther Open Studio Gabe
ALA 1
ALA 2.1
ALA 2.2
Other notes

Make Cool Stuff: ALA Museum Day Wednesday October 27, 2004

Make Cool Stuff: ALA Museum Day Wednesday October 27, 2004

This was a very cool day with ALA. They spent an hour in reflection and contemplations. They had very good insights
and suggestions for improvement and for different playshops next year. It is truly amazing what they will think
of when they are forced to think and then verbalize those thoughts. They had some good ideas about possible things
they would like to be involved with such as Bruce Shappiro's dancing machines, etc. These ideas were all captured and
taken down. Now we just have to get busy and get some of them implemented so they will not be left hanging. They really
seem to want to be involved in all of the work we are doing. They also appreciate being treated as adults and perhaps this will
be a means to work with one or two "little groups" that have had trouble applying themselves and utilizing their time
to the fullest. Bill

ALA Museum Day Wednesday October 27, 2004

Today the ALA design it students came to the museum and we had a wrap up information session for mindfest. We also got them all signed up for cycle work. The Kids had some great suggestions for next year's mindfest, and i'll try to get some of them up on this site in the next two days. The students had the choice of signing up for 5 different cycles of material, from tomorrow till the end of the school year. THe very next cycle consists of the art of storytelling - learning how to develop ideas so that people will actually want to watch your film or play your game because they can become involved in a narrative of some kind, whether printed or digital. After that comes the MUSIC MIDI MADNESS cycle, where we wil l explore the realm of music making with cricket and MIDI technology, with a culmination of their work becoming sound machines to display at this year's Mad Scientist's Ball in February. THe third cycle available is the REALWORLDS, MICROWORLDS cycle, consisting of working with cricket technology to create digital worlds and scenes that interact with our own physical reality through the use of sensors and the Microworlds animation. After that, we offer THE ART OF DESIGN IT, where we will offer the students a chance to totally explore their artistic side, bringing in artists to help them create stunning visuals that could be used in their programming, or a film, or anything they choose. Finally, the last cycle is CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. We want to put every tool available into the brains of these students so that if they want to make a film, they are not inhibited in any way. If they want to work on a video game, they will have the skill to do so - we want to give them a chance to be free to work on what they choose, and create something magical. Using the previous cycles' materials, the students will be able to do just that! We start with the art of storytelling tomorrow.
Jonathon

The New Beginning

Mindfest was a success this past weekend! We had many Design IT students come and participate in the weekend's fun and activities. Many of them were volunteers helping out in the playshops, the Mindfest Day Activities around the museum, and some even stayed to experience much more. We had students from both the ALA and the Boys and Girls Clubs come to be a part of the events. I personally had help from about 6 different ALA students over the course of the three days, doing circuit bending and scratch animation. The experience for them was a good one - getting the kids interested in showing off their work to others and excited about new forms of creativity.
This week we begin with the new group from the ALA, as well as heavier recruitment from the Clubs. More will be posted here when the new schedule of events becomes available later today. The cycle work is supposed to begin this week - the murder group with storytelling, and the gaggle with machines. This may change, but all will be posted here no matter those changes. I'm looking forward to the new beginning.
Jonathon

ALA DAY, Thursday October 14

Today's objectives were as follows - We wanted to introduce the students to the melon harp idea (from Ice THeramin) as well as refresh their memory on circuit bending. Karie came with me to ALA, and i had given her a crash course in both before we went there. I asked her to supervise and help the circuit bending group while i woked with the melon harp group. I gave the students the choice of what they wanted to experiment with, and more of the students chose circuit bending than did the melon harp. Joey and David were not given the choice, they had to circuit bend to get ready for the playshop that they signed up for. Those two will be helping me facilitate the circuit bending playshop on Thursday of next week. They experimented with some of the toys we got, and i realized that a few of the ones we acquired are not going to work so well. That can be fixed. THe group doing the melon harp were to program the crickets themselves, from a template we set up on the projector. The sensors were then jabbed into and raked over the fruits to create some amazing sounds. The melon harp group were then instructed to hack the program, trying new things to make new sounds. Some worked rather well, and some did not. THe circuit bending students were challenged to incorporate light sensors into their bent toys, as well as trying to find a way to link a few of the toys together. THe students seemed well engaged with all of these activities for about an hour or so. I was surprised that they worked so well so fast! I was expecting the activities to take longer thatn they did. I'll have to plan a few more activities for next time - which is funny because next week is MINDFEST!!
Jonathon

ALA Museum Day - October 13, 2004

Today's objective was to introduce the new applicants into the program to the technology behind the stop motion animation cameras as well as give the returning students a chance to use the technology in view of the public eye. THe secondary objective was to interview as many of the new students as possible, while giving the returning group the chance to use the new students in the making of their films. I have given the students code names, and from now on i will refer to them this way - returning students = murder, new students = gaggle. Murder group was set up in groups of four, each with a camera and a laptop to film. They were given instructions on what to film, and how many frames to shoot at any given moment. They were to listen for me to tell them to film and then click off 10 frames each time. The subject of each film included Gaggle members. The Gaggle were broken up into 6 groups and given specific instructions about what they were to act out in front of the cameras. They were to listen for the instructions to move and freeze, and then knew that they were being filmed. The gaggle set up in the courtyard, and the murder set up in 6 locations around the courtyard, some on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and some on the ground with the gaggle. The purpose was to try and get as many different angles of as many different things as possible, so that later we could discuss the element of chaos and why having direction (and a working STORY) is important, both from the action perspective and the filming perspective. Some of the murder remarked to me during the filming that the gaggle didn't understand what we were doing and that the films were not going to be "good". I gave a few of the murder a chance to go and insert themselves into the gaggle groups to help out, in an attempt to give them a chance to instruct a bit in the art of stop motion filmmaking. THe end of the filming saw the entire group taking direction from me, save for the murder students that were filming, trying to make a huge human pyramid. This came off looking well in the film itself. After the filming was done, the students were taken back to the studio space in IAP for debriefing. Myles asked the two groups what worked for them and what needed to improve. A few of the murder remarked that the films would be erratic because of the lack of direction - each group was given a separate set of directions that didn't seem to mesh with the students' interaction. This was explained to them as a moment of understanding to see why having a plan, A STORY, is so important to all people involved. The murder group also remarked that outside lighting was a problem for filming - i like that they are noticing the technical aspects! The gaggle group spoke about interesting problems like their props not working, not totally understanding what they were to be acting out, and they showed an interest in the technology. Whetting their appetite for the upcoming months of learning is exciting. I'm hoping that they will get excited about machines, and crickets, and chain reactions very soon!! I can tell that the STORYTELLING cycle is going to prove very interesting for the murder. The chaotic day also gave the kids a little glimpse into the fun of MINDFEST DAY, which they don't yet realize, but we do. Myles and I worked well together, putting the plan for the day into action while Saafir was interviewing the gaggle. More interviews are necessary, but we have about 40 new applicants from ALA.
Jonathon

Fishing at the Clubs: Wednesday Night

At Panther

I'm happy with the goodwill that we have built at the clubs, especially at Panther. I swung by for a half-hour to talk to my crew from last year. I signed up Taylor, Jasmine, Micah, and Vittoria to help with Mindfest. MYLES and GABE -- I will meet with these teens on Monday at Panther, then they will come to the Museum on Wednesday afternoon to prepare.

At Northside

I invited ten or fifteen teens, including Lazoro & Juan Hernandez, Aaron, and Jason Smith to come to the museum and hang out with Megan for a few hours. I also had a long conversation with this giant, tattooed Hispanic guy named Aaron. He called Mary Perez his "mom" becuase he grew up in the Boys and Girls Club. He told me about his hobby of creating art. He has fifteen airbrushes and does murals around the community, on churches and in nightclubs. He has won art competitions and was invited by to go to school there and help teach (I couldn't make out what or who they wanted him to teach.) We agreed that he would do the mural on the divider wall that Joe is going to build for us in the teen room.

ALA Day, Tuesday Oct. 12

Today Gabe, Karie, and I went to the ALA, with the objectives being the same as Thursday of last week. THe students were to create stop motion facial transformations, as their classmates had done, with the film itself lasting 30 seconds. All the students took to the activity fairly well, with the exception of one or two. There were a couple of kids who were reluctant at first to put the paint on their faces, but Karie was an incredible asset to the team, bringing a little face painting expertise and really making a couple of the kids look good. THe filmmaking process was an interesting learning experience for most of the kids, because only two of yesterday's group had actually done the summer workshop. Gabe was a great help getting some technical difficulties taken care of and he helped to paint and film one particular group of kids. Watching them work, and trying to give hints as to the filmmaking process proves more of a challenge today i think because the thursday group seemed to take to this activity with more of an interest. Both groups picked up on the techniques of the stop motion process fairly quickly, and it will be interesting to see how their experiences carry over to Wednesday, when we experiment with this on the floor, as well as the next cycle of material that will be focused on storytelling involving technology.

Week 5 Schedule

	Monday	Tuesday
Northside		At Northside (continue Stop Motion Transformations and collect Cycle 2 applications) Saafir, Megan, Bill
Panther	At Panther (begin Stop-Motion Transformations) Myles, Nick, Saafir
ALA 1		At ALA (continue Stop-Motion Transformations) Jonathon, Gabe, Karie
ALA 2.1	(Afternoon interviews at ALA?) Saafir
ALA 2.2
Other notes		11:00 All-Staff Meeting Jonathon: is 3 cameras apiece enough to work on stop-motion? We had teams of three or four over the summer.
	Wednesday	Thursday
Northside		At Museum (Stop Motion Transformations in IAP) Megan, Bill
Panther	At Museum (continue Stop-Motion Transformations) Myles, Gabe Saafir,
ALA 1	At Museum (Stop Motion in Invention At Play groups will storyboard ideas and also try stop-motion encounters with the public) Saafir, Jonathon, & Bill	At ALA (Circuit Bending and Melon Harp) Jonathon, Gabe, & Karie
ALA 2.1	interviews
ALA 2.2	interviews
Other notes	Myles: I have to confirm the “at the Museum” idea with Roland, otherwise, we’ll do this at the Club	Megan: I have to confirm the “at the Museum” idea with Mary, otherwise, we’ll do this at the Club. Is this week too soon to begin your Tues/Thur work with Northside?
	Friday	Saturday
Northside	At Northside (Melon Harp) Nick
Panther	At Panther (Melon Harp) Gabe
ALA 1
ALA 2.1
ALA 2.2
Other notes	E-mail Hours to Saafir !!!

ALA October 7, at ALA

Today's objective centered around the creation of a short animated film. The purpose of the filmmaking was threefold. First, the students were going to become familiar with the ideas behind mask making for MINDFEST - the ideas of transforming into something new and creative. Second, the students who had been to the summer institutes were able to help instruct their classmates on the usage of the cameras and filmmaking software. Third, the students will be introduced to the idea of how to tell an interesting story, a precursor to the second cycle of material. THere were 8 students tonight - a few were home sick from school. It seems like we are going to have about equal numbers of kids on each away night that will be able to work. I set up the software and cameras on te machines in the ALA computer lab, and Gabe and I talked to the students about what the cycles looked like after mindfest, as well as the returning students' role in beginning to work on the floor at the museum. After that discussion, i explained to the students that they would be making short animated films, but with a twist. I explained the face paints to them, and how they were each expected to undergo a transformation on film. The transformation challenge was set at a time of 30 seconds of film. The time was set so the students would have to consciously think about what to draw and paint, and then be able to visualize their creativity on film. The students were randomly paired, with a student who knew the software paired with one who did not, so that there would be a little teaching going on between them as well. THe films that were created were immensely interesting, and some of the students went above and beyond the challenge by actually using their transformations to tell a story or two. I discussed this idea of how to tell an interesting story with many of the students individually, asking them questions like "what was difficult about making these films 30 seconds long?" and "is there anything you can think of that would have made it easier for you to film?" A few of the students were reminded of the storyboarding we did this summer, and hopefully they will remember the processes when the second cycle begins. The same activity will be done on tuesday, and i'm hoping that the students will not tell the ones who haven't done this yet - i have asked them to keep it a secret so it will be a surprise to the others. I want to see how creative they are on the spot.
(Nick and I both had a transformation done to ourselves to show the kids how things could be done - and to show them that we are willing to do it all too!)
Jonathon

Stomp Rocket fun!

More Rocket fun from ALA!!

Check out the last 6 or 7 Posts: New stuff!

Soda Bottle Rockets At Panther

Staff: Gabe, Myles, Saafir
Attendance: Nisha, Jasmine, Bianca (and her friend), Micah, Jonathan, Taylor, Marcus, Vittoria, Hanan, Tiffany, (+ 4 more)

The younger kids at the club were dying to get thier hands on the soda bottle rockets after we took them into the gym and fired them across the room. Most of the teens, on the other hand, weren't very interested -- they are still building thier Blackplanet.com webpages and surfing other people's sites. Before we began, we played the "Signs" game and again, the younger teens played but the older ones didn't. It was fun because we offered a soda to whoever won. Micah and Tiffany got sodas. Myles, Gabe, several of the kids and I made stomp rockets, took them into the gym, and later took them outside to launch in the field. We had a squadron of little kids following us around wherever we went. Fun stuff.

ALA Museum Day, October 6

The agenda for the day was a reintroduction to stomp rockets. Some of the kids have done this before and some have not. This seemed to be a good idea for the day because a few of the kids will be helping out doing stomp rockets during the actual Mindfest event. The group today was divided into random pairs, and then they were shown a demonstration of how to make a rocket by Bill Voss. The students were given 3 objectives - they were to each build a working rocket, then they were hack that rocket to make it faster, fly longer, better, etc., and they were to pay close attention to what worked for them and what needed improvement for a discussion at the end of the session. THe students were able to make use of the new studio space inside the Invention At Play gallery today - this involved the public getting a chance to see the students at work, and there were quite a few visitors to some by and watch the fun. I was able to take some pictures of the day's events, which should get uploaded soon.
The pairs were given the opportunity to fly each of their rockets, in a minor competition to see whose would fly the farthest. We went outside into the courtyard for that. The teams and the flight lengths were quite varied, with two of the teams making rockets that flew at least 100 feet. They would have flown farther, but the rockets hit the building first. We then brought the kids back inside to the studio space to debrief, have the SO WHAT moment. I wanted the students to verbalize what worked for them and what did not, as well as what they improved on their rockets. If i had been thinking better, i would have had the students make the first rocket, then launch it outside, then come back in and begin the hacking process, to better their creation. I did like the fact that visitors were interested in what we were doing inside the IAP space, however. The students were able to verbalize that weighing down the nose of the rocket helped to stabilize it. They also spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of wings, and anything else that added too much weight. Wings proved to be more of a detriment to everyone in the flight length department, but one group actually made a glider with long wings. It flew in circles, instead of straight ahead - very creative!! Too much tape was not a good thing to the rockets, and the students also remarked that the blowing wind was a big factor in the flight as well. All in all, a very good day!
Jonathon

at J.P. Elder Middle School

Recruitment Visit
I set up in LeighAnne Willams' art room to talk up Design IT Studio to four groups of 7th and 8th graders early this afternoon. I used the stop-motion animation films and the sound automata from the summer to introduce the idea of Design IT. I'm going to drop off flyers and B&G Club sign up sheets on Friday morning

ALA @ museum Oct. 6, 2004

STOMP ROCKET DAY!! I would say that today was a success. We paired them up (by drawing lots) then briefly briefed them on the protcol for making rocket launchers and rockets then proceeded up to the new Design It facility in the East Gallery. It attracted considerable attention of the public viewers, many of whom wanted to know what we were doing, how we were doing it, etc.

We gave them about 30-40 minutes to construct the launchers and each person then made a rocket to be launched and a few made more. There was paper, tape, and a wide variety of materials for weights, wings, and decorations as desired. After this we proceeded to go out to the south courtyard (an enclosed contained space) and marked off 60 ft with a tape measure. Then each team was allowed two trials or launches. They had a choice of using the same rocket each time or a different one. We had launches for each team and recorded the distances each one achieved. At he end, we had a launch for anyone desiring additional trials, which all did. To my amazement many went the 60ft. and three flew to a wall (and crashed) 100ft. away and would have gone further had the wall not stopped them.

After this we debriefed with a "meaning making" session to determine what they had discovered about the qualities or design of rockets that make then or allow them to travel the longer distances. Many came up with the basic principles of weighted front ends, fewer adournments to reduce friction
and smooth exteriors to also less drag, etc.

Johnathan then discussed roles in Mindfest with special attention to stomp rockets assistants and a call for more applications. Then a few wanted another chance at launching a rocket, so those again went outside for a last effort. The bus arrived and they departed; happy I believe.

Muse List Brainstorm

Before our staff meeting on Tuesday morning we had a twenty minute brainstorm. Folks there include Jonathon, Myles, Erica, Saafir, and, later, Joyce Baker. Check it out.

Candy How can we use candy in Design IT?

1. Carrots (instead of sticks
2. Edible project
3. Candy launchers on a float during a parade(scream voice recorders)
4. Game shows, like plinko with Cricket powered activators
5. Awards
6. Make games, like “chubby bunny” but using the sour balls, etc.
7. Stop motion films eating candy

Muse List How do we fill the studios with inspirational people?

1. Bruce Shapiro
2. Robotic installation
3. Ian McClurkin
4. Anyone from IAP
5. Concert with musicians (and myles and Jonathon)
6. Daniel or Justin – Keyboard, Myles' friend
7. Daniel McCarthy – DVD and film production, friend of Jonathon
8. Amanda Mein - art
9. Greg Barr – 7 th street studio
10. Charles/Chris – from museum
11. Jared Faye – video and bagpipes
12. (have 2 guests per week)
13. Megan's Friend Greg – Lockheed
14. Megan Koval – Lockheed representative to Museum for Nat'l Engineer's week
15. Sensor building, more sensor stuff to get Lockheed involved
16. Have big blowout in cafeterias – science theater, sound automata, gloop list writ large, etc.
17. DJ Paul – TCU radio station, interviews, etc, live music, live performance using crickets, MIDI ,
18. Talk to museums – modern, Kimball, etc
19. CALL KENDALL !!
20. Recording studio on bluebonnet circle – myles' friends
21. Norah Jones
22. J. Mac Slaughter
23. Sarah Chacko – photography
24. Sarah Slaughter
25. Barri Buckner – actor, used to work here – Bill's contact
26. David Anglin – photography, friend of Jonathon
27. Auger – photography
28. Carter museum storyteller
29. Symphony people
30. UTA – speaker list?
31. Shakhashiri – Chemistry
32. Architecture Scavenger Hunt
33. Video Game Writers
34. LUCAS ARTS – Charlie Walter, contact; Pat Raval's nephew
35. PIXAR
36. DISNEY
37. Chris Powell
38. Johnny Pate
39. Jo Dufo