Panther Light Painting

dates: Wednesday, November 7 and Monday November 9

big idea: For two days we blocked out the windows and turned the Panther teen room into our own darkroom for one of our most successful days of participation in a long time: a Panther Light Painting Extravaganza. To recap the process of light painting, please the "Kitundu Workshops" entry below. The description is under "Light Painting" posted November 21st. We basically followed the same process. The first day we viewed some pictures of examples created in the past, and for each photo I asked how they thought it may ahve been created. Then we divided into groups of three and simply experimented with different light sources. The second day is when i assigned them challenges such as "creating an emotion" or writting your name" and so on. Some sweet works of art were created.

attendance: 15 panther teens, including some highschoolers

best part: How focused they were and the reaction to some of their pieces. I heard high-fives constantly as groups successfully completed thier challenges. Some of my favorites included Jazmine writting her name successfully, wings on Taylor, and Michael absolutely finding a passion in simply using the digital cameras.

hardest part: Getting them focused on the challenges presented. The simple waving a light in front of the camera was entertaining enough for the group, however, once they focused on a challenge with a little encouragement from Gabe and I, and completed it succesfully, they eventually asked for other activities to try.

Enjoy the pics and this activity.

myles

Mindfest Recap

Hey crew. Wanted to do a quick Mindfest recap to give my perspective of this successful event.

Friday, October 21
Arrived around 5pm and started setting up for Walter Kitundu's big performance and for hosting the scratch animation table to be in full swing outside during the film festival later that evening. The concert itself was unbelievable. Many of my musician friends attended who use similar looping techniques in thier music, and it simply blew thier minds. We are so lucky to have Walter as a museum friend. The scratch table was a big hit, and we had perfect weather for the film festival. Great start to a great weekend.

Saturday, October 22
Spent the day at the Sound Sculpture table in ExploraZone. The table of 6 or 7 working sculptures freaked out both parents and kids alike. I had alot of questions about where such awesome educational material is avalable. I had a blast retooling some of the busted sculptures with some young scientists. Some kids dived in for a long time. One kid named Morgan spent two hours with us! Also, watching our DesignIT teens take a teaching role during the festival made me so proud. Leland did an amazing job with many of the younger kids. They're growing up so fast (tear) !

Sunday, October 23
Spent the day at the Stop Motion Animation table in Lonestar. What I loved to see at Mindfest was parent/child teams working together on projects with all this awesome new material that is not usually excessable. Then at the end of the day having them sit and cheer for the movie they made together when we played all the projects on the big screen. Made all the work we put in well worth it.

Above I've included pictures to highlight just some of the weekend, although I heard so much more cool stuff went on. What an amazing tradition we've got goin. And I am thrilled DesignIT teens are starting to become part of that tradition. It really challenged them and may have created confident future educators. We'll see. I loved being a part of it.

Kitundu workshops

Hey ya'll. Still catchin up, and I don't want to miss giving my point of view on the Kitundu experience. In the week before Mindfest, Walter introduced a few more activities to DesignIT we had never done. They went over perfectly. So here's what I got to participate in and some photos to go with it...

Shadow Paintings

dates: Monday, October 17 and Tuesday, October 18

big idea: Create 3 dimesional sculptures that caste shadows creating 2 dimensional paintings. The order of activities to lead to his was well planned. First, we had a group discussion on what light is and its different characteristics. We then went outside and then discussed the medium we'd be working with- shadows. We talked about charactristics of shadows including things we noticed about different light sources and how its distance effected the shadow's shape. When inside, we divided into pairs and each had a table with a overhead desklamp and various materials. One challenge was to build a sculpture that created a shape with its shadow while the sculpture itself looks nothing like the shape. With that shape, we continued to the next challenge which was to create an image. Some of the kids' images included a bleeding heart, a spider, a clock, and a pair of scissors. Finally, another challenge included creating a sculpture that created half an image, where the other half was drawn on the table itself, therefore the image was incomplete without the light. Some of these included a knight fighting dragon, an alien, and a hangman.

attendance: the blue dot crew (about 15 second and third ALA year teens)

supplies: overhead desk lamp, butcher paper, hot glue guns, hot glue, various small wood pieces, other assorted craft materials

best part: Seeing the images come alive as they worked. This activity takes time and patience, but as you can see from the pictures when kid's got going they came up with some creative images.

hardest part: The hardest part for our group was crafting stable structures that would not bend after a certain amount of time. This part took patience and some time learning the best way to craft the structures. Another challenge was keeping the sculptures themselves interesting looking, even without the shadows. This was best done through Walter's advice of creating the lines in your shadow image through crafting the wooden pieces at variuos unexpected planes above the table. After learning that trick the sculptures started coming alive.

Light Painting

dates: Wednesday, October 19 and Thursday, October 20

big idea: Using digital cameras to create light paintings with various colorful light sources. By working in a dark room, keeping the camera still on a tripod, and keeping its shutter open for a certain length of time (in this case 10 to 15 seconds), one can be very creative in creating images. We seperated into groups of three, each person having a specific job. One controlled the camera, while the other two created the art. It was important to make sure the camera focused correctly before begining, so one person would usually use a flashlight to create a light sorce on the subject bright enough to do so. The groups had the choice of working within a frame created out of cardboard to match the dimensions of the camera's view. And finally, different challenges were also introduced to each group at various times to keep the creative juices flowing. Some included...
-create a shape
-outline a friend
-give a person wings
-make someone a super hero
-create an image evoking an emotion
-create an image representing your personality
-make something appear at least 5 times
-draw a landscape
-write your name
-make part of someone/something dissapppear

attendance: again, the blue dot crew (about 15 second and third year ALA teens)

best part: How into it the kids got! Immediately they started creating and when the time was up they did not want to stop.

hardest part: For our group, the hardest part was our last challenge-create an image evoking an emotion. We chose scary, and decided to create an image of one person holding a decapitated head in each hand. It proved to be a challenge due to controlling the light where it would not bleed onto our bodies. It took us six attempts, but finally made an image that looks awesome.

Above I've included some images, and we cannot thank Walter enough for teaching us two new outstanding activities. We tried light painting a few weeks later at Panther, and we had the most attendance we've ever had. I'll be blogging about it soon. Best to you all.

Continuing ALA Trainig with Bluedots

Game Plan
November 16, 2005, Wednesday
ALA Wednesday with Bluedot and Pico

I. Bluedot

• Finishing IR Communication Workshop.


• Separate into two teams: Nascar Race and Chain Reaction using IR Communication program.


• Myles demonstrating the use of Nascar Races

- experimenting with random sequence IR signals to control the speed of the cars.

• IR signals will allow communication between crickets that will be attached to motors and sensors in a chain reaction across the room.

II. Pico

• Introduce Crickets to Chain Reactions as switches for motors (switch or alligator clips)


• Pico’s will be divided into several small groups to construct their Marble Run and Chain Reaction.


• Challenge for the Pico

- Must use have chain reaction switch the marble run.
- Incorporate the use of switches, motor, and marbles.

• Crystal will facilitate the marble run.

catchin up

To keep on catchin up so you'll can catch on to Panther's progress, I'm gonna temporarily skip over bloggin about Mindfest. I'll come back shortly with an extensive blog with my opinions and experiences both of the Kitundu cycle with ALA and the fest itself. But for now, I'll continue at the club with our stop motion animation halloween film festival and our Panther Parent Pizza Party...

Panther Halloween Animation Film Festival

dates: Monday October 24, Wednesday October 26, Friday October 28 and Monday October 31

big idea: With the big annual Panther Halloween Party falling a week after Mindfest, I chose to use that week to review a popular activity, therefore not losing any 2nd or 3rd year teen's interest right off the bat, but also one that would engage new members. In addition, the final products of this week could be displayed for the whole club at the big bash. Hence, creating stop-motion animation films for the Halloween Party.

attendance: descent attendence...Leanthia, Breala, Jonathon, Marcus, Thomas

supplies: laptops, intel play cameras, playdoh, action figures, random craft supplies

best part: the world premier of "Barphman" directed by Marcus Mitchell. Once he got focused, he went all the way with creating a film with effects, dialog and plot. If you're reading this, ask me to show you "Barphman"-you will laugh. It was the big hit at the Film Festival where we had about 35 kids attend. After the premier of the teen's stop-motion films, we watched about 20 minutes of Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas".

hardest part: Getting the older kid's back into it, but once they got it, they took off.

Panther Parent Pizza Party
Wednesday, November 2nd - Having sent fliers home with the teens the previous week and a reminder flier with them on Monday, we held a very successful DesignIT informational meeting for the teens and thier parents. From 5pm to 7pm we held an open studio with various activities for all to try around the conference room, and at 6:30 when pizza arrived we had a formal sit down presentation with Saafir and I speaking. In the presentation we described new policies of memebership including the sign-in sheets, we listed the benefits of attending, and we fielded questions. Though only 3 of the teens parents attended, they appreciated the information we provided and were excited for this opportuntiy for their teen. This was also the most attended DesignIT meeting yet with around 16 teens present and attentive. During open studio, Sammie, Gabe, Crystal, Saafir and myself manned stations of different activities we had either done in the past in DesignIT or would do in the future, including Acid Sreenblast, a sound sculpture built by Panther Teens, and the new activity of light painting. This activity seemed the most popular, as seen in one photo included in this blog, and provided a fantastic introduction to our new cycle the following week, which will be blogged about soon.

Best Part:
Myles - For the parents that did come, they seemed very excited for their child to be in DesignIT.
Sammie - The kids that are in Panther B&GC were so interested in DesignIT and that they needed to be drag away by their parents.
Crystal - We reached a lot of kids who are normally in the program and letting them explore the new projects in the program.

Worst Part:
Myles - none
Sammie – There were some difficulty with the cameras due to room light and we didn’t have back up batteries.
Crystal – Very little parental invlovement, eventhough the parents that were there were very excited about the program.

So, next up to blog about...
-the Kitundu Workshops
-Mindfest
-Light Painting at Panther
-Thaumatropes and two frame flipbooks at Panther

myles

mh back again.

Hey gang. Hope everyone had a great summer and is having a pleasant fall. I know Panther is. Now to fill you in on what we've been up to out there. October was spent captivating the old and recruiting the new, which has been a success on both accounts. Since most of the activities we did that month were old favorites that we already have blogged the intimate details on, I will instead summerize briefly by date, the activity, its attendance, and successes or challenges presented...

Monday, October 10 - Dropped by the club for the first time since July and had a warm reception. I met Ms. Adrian, the new club director, who is very cool and will be very helpful and with any of our needs. Chit-chatted with Ms. Mays and Gabe, and hung out in the teen room for a spell to catch-up with the older teens from years previous. It seemed the turn-over of sixth-grade to seventh-grade club members was reletively small, so gaining new participants posed a challenge. Before I left I made sure to hand-out fliers announcing our first informational meeting for all panther teens seventh-grade and up (snacks included was a huge recruitment factor).

Wednesday, October 13 - Had a successful turnout for our first meeting of Panther's DesignIT crew of the 2005-06 school year. Those in attendance included...

Micheal Adams
Tikiah Harris
Deimetra Simmons
Leanthia Jenkins
Braela Reed
Myene Lewis
Jonathon Ramirez
Marcus Mitchell

At the meeting we covered the following...
-our new sign-in system which didn't catch-on right away, but now is in full swing
-how to sign up hourly participation, and the goal of 12 hours to become an enrolled member
-benefits to becoming a member, including a free family museum membership, a DesignIT t-shirt, museum and other location fieldtrips, the possibility of winning an i-pod at the end of the year, and the possibilty of a paid summer internship at the museum
-expectations when becoming a member including completing at least 4 projects displaying various IT skills and are worthy of being displayed for the public
-the scheduale of days and times we would start, consisting of mondays and wednesdays from 5pm to 7pm, being closed studio to teach activities from 5pm to 5:30pm, and fridays being open studio 5pm to 7pm
-the upcoming 2005 "Mindfest" on the weekend of october 21st and thier appreciated participation

With Mindfest fast approaching the following week, I printed up a list and description of every activity that would be there. After reading through each carefully together, we took a vote on which the group would like to focus on in order to become skilled enough to teach to the public at Mindfest. The majority of the group voted for sound sculptures, which the previous year they had not had time to try due lack of access to the power tools. Luckily, that also happened to be the activity I would be leading, so it was a great review for me as well. After snacks and a brief intro to this years exciting potential activities for thier DesignIT studio at Panther, we concluded our first meeting.

Panther Mindfest Cycle - Sound Sculptures

dates: Monday, October 17 and Wednesday, October 19

big idea: By building sculptures that make noise through movement when light meets thier light sensors, the activity re-introduces cricket programming to older teens and introduces programming to new teens in a fun, attractive, non-threatening, but challenging activity. The sound sculpture project also provides challenges in problem solving through building where a reletively instant product encourages new students through quick success.

attendance: Fairly good attendence, and interestingly was seperated by the sexes totally unintentionally. I've noticed this usually ends up in more focused groups.
Monday - the gals...Leanthia, Braela, and Mylene
Wednesday - the boys...Michale, Jonathon, and Marcus

supplies: laptops, crickets, transfer crickets, motors, motors cables, motor connectors, light sensors, random craft/noise making supplies for building, hot glue guns, (because of no power tools) halfway built/incomplete sound sculptures.

best part: Successfully finishing one with each group. In fact, the one the ladies built ended up being displayed at Mindfest

hardest part: Attendence at Mindfest. This was disappointing because they became so familar with the activity so quickly. I learned quickly that parent notification is the only way to get attendence to weekend activities.

The next couple weeks with Panther enjoyed stable attendence and some creative projects. We also got to meet some of the parents at our parent pizza party night and display achievements past and present of our teens. Finally, the last week was spent begining our animation cycle with a new favorite activity, "light painting". All of this will be blogged in detail soon with many photos to view. Look forward to getting our progress and creations recorded here for all to see. Take care.
myles

ALA IR Communication & Fluency Model's Proposal

Game Plan
November 9, 2005, Wednesday

Bluedot

I. IR Communication
1.) Todays events are to learn how to work and program crickets to do IR Communication.

• First, they explored the idea of waves and different forms of communications.


• Next, with an understanding of IR waves, Myles will lead the workshop and instructing the Bluedots to work efficiently with the Logoblocks program.

2.) After the IR workshop, the Bluedots will either finish their proposal for the Fluency Models and/or begin to bring their ideas to life form.

II. Activity:

• Myles IR Workshop


• The Bluedots experiment with the new IR program


• Testing the waves through different object.


• Testing the number waves to have connections between the two crickets.


• Myles will show program using three crickets that beeps and play music.


• Multi-cricket communication


• Bluedots will brainstorm new projects using IR Communication.

Pico:

III. Solder and Exhibit

1. Solder Workshop

A.) Crystal and Sammie will be instructing half of the Picos towards the do’s and don’ts on soldering
B.) Pico kids practice with the solder.

• Practice with the Christmas lights


• Practice with the motor

1. For the second Pico group, Jonathan will be introducing them to the exhibits.

Documentation

Game Plan
November 7, 2005, Monday
Documentation

I. Documentation
a.) Document the positive and negative result of the teens independent project/cycle.

II. Where to begin?
a.) Students name
b.) Date
c.) Project title/Cycle
d.) Give at least one idea that made the project work.
e.) Give at least one idea that did not make the project work.
f.) What would you do differently?

III. No Right or Wrong
a.) There is no wrong way to document, just as long as the teens are elaborate in their
explanations.
b.) Coaches should advice teens to start the documentation 10 to 15 minutes before
leaving the designated area.
c.) Coaches should check the documents in case there are puzzling sentences.

SCHEDULE FOR ALA - BOTH GROUPS

The two ALA groups will from this moment be identified as PICO and BLUEDOT. The BLUEDOT group consists of the returning students, some in their 2^nd year, some in their 3^rd. The PICO group consists of brand new students from ALA. These will be their designations from now on.

NOVEMBER SCHEDULE FOR ALA

4 – PICO

Switches: motors, batteries, cardboard, foil, foil tape, single strand wire, tape, Christmas lights

7 – BLUEDOT

Detail skill sets to work for – kids decide what they want to work on, begin written proposal of work

8 – BLUEDOT

Turn in finished proposal for project – reviewed by Jonathon

9 – BLUEDOT

Intro to Cricket IR

PICO

Soldering learning, wire on motors: Work on Chain Creations from Nov. 2

10 – PICO

Chain Creations with Motors, Switches, Lights, etc. – Continue soldering practice if necessary

11 – Chain Creations with Motors, Switches, Lights, etc. – Continue soldering practice if necessary

14 – BLUEDOT

Independent work on skill set project

15 – BLUEDOT

Independent work on skill set project

16 – BLUEDOT

IR Day 2 – come up with IR project (1 hr)

Work on skill set project (1hr)

PICO

Introduce Crickets to Chain Reactions as switches for motors (switch or alligator clips)

Add marbles to chain reaction

17 – PICO

Cricket Programming – Sensors, motors, switches, displays

18 – PICO

Cricket Programming – Sensors, motors, switches, displays

21 – 25 – THANKSGIVING HOLIDAYS – NO DESIGN IT STUDIOS!!!

28 – BLUEDOT

Independent work on skill set project or IR set

29 – BLUEDOT

Independent work on skill set projects of IR set

30 – BLUEDOT

IR day 3 – work on IR project (1 hr)

Work on skill set project (1 hr)

PICO

Divide into groups, give pegboards, practice marble runs

DECEMBER

1 – PICO

Sensor Building – light sensors: Design for chain sculptures

2 – PICO

Sensor Building – light sensors: Design for chain sculptures

5 – BLUEDOT

Independent project work – project review begins by Jonathon, Crystal, Gabe, etc.

6 – BLUEDOT

Independent project work - project reviews continue

7 – BLUEDOT

Tweak projects, finish reviews

PICO

Build chain sculptures

8 – PICO

Build Chain Sculptures

9 – PICO

Build chain sculptures, finish, cricket program

12 – BLUEDOT

Finish skill set projects, Final Review

13 – BLUDOT

Finish Skill Set projects, final reviews

14 – Showcase day!!!

BLUEDOT – showcase independent work

PICO – showcase chain reaction

15 – all encompassing Christmas party – both groups!!!!

ALA First Wednesday with Pico

Game Plan
November 2, 2005, Wednesday
ALA Wednesday with Bluedot and Pico

I. Bluedot

1. Description of skill sets


2. New Schedule


3. Describe Fluency Models


4. First Focus: Documentation & Blogging

II. First Skill Set

1. Mindfest


2. Kitundu’s workshop

C.) Example: Points to Ponder

• What happened?


• What was my role?


• What materials were used?


• Success? Failures?

III. Presentation
How would you present your work at ALA? To Museum? Power Point? Slideshow?
BE CREATIVE!!!

IV. Pico

1. Introduction

Welcome to DesignIT

• Schedule


• Uniform


• Attendance


• Introduction to Chain Reaction


• The Way Things Go


• Introduction to reactions, switches, motors, sensors, and crickets.

Parent Night at Panther Boys & Girls Club

Game Plan
November 1, 2005, Tuesday
Parent Night at Panther Boys & Girls Club

I. Purpose:
Our main objective for the Parent Night at Panther Boys & Girls Club is to attract the teens to DesignIT Studios. There will be three demonstrations from the DesignIT Coaches, followed by Saafir’s criteria for DesignIT Studios. Food will be provided for the teens and their parents. The night will end with liquid nitrogen and the teens tinkering with the demonstrations that were on displayed.

II. Demonstration:

1. Intel Play (Stop Motion Pictures)


2. Acid Pro (Screenblast)


3. Light Painting


4. Saafir’s criteria for DesignIT, including benefits


5. Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

III. Party time:

• 6:00pm-7:30pm

IV. Materials Needed:

• 2 digital cameras and tripod


• digital projector


• black tarp sheets


• 3 to 4 light sources


• name tags


• plates, ice, cooler


• chime sculpture


• speakers sets


• 2 Intel play cameras


• 4 laptops, power sources


• play doh