Metal Men

Big Idea: Create small statues of people using, different types of metal.
Dates: Saturday, January 21, 2006
Groups Participating: Northside Boys and Girls Club
Attendance: Augie (Resident Artist), Saafir and Rockey (coaches), Armando, Angel, Rolando, and Valarie.
Materials: aluminum gutter guard, 17 gauge electric fence wire, 14 gauge electric fence wire, pliers, wire cutters, and gloves
Directions:
Associated Concepts: This activity gives kids hands on experience with using everyday materials and creating art. They will then use this understanding in creating IT sculptures.
Best Part: Giving these kids a chance to work with an experienced artist, who has exhibited his sculptures in Texas, and Norway.
Worst Part: Forgetting to wear gloves. Also some of the thicker fence wire can be hard to manipulate, I recommend using pliers.
Improvements: Having examples of each step of the process. Some people are visual learners and need to see what they are trying to create. This also helps create a goal for which they can aim to achieve.

Augie's workshop

Time: Saturday, January 21, 2006

Activity: Making sculptures using metal wires and other scrap metal.

People: Augie (the workshop guide), Sammie and Crystal (the ALA coaches), Wesley, Eddie, Leland, and David (the Bluedots.)

We had a blast on Saturday! There were music, artistic images to be created, an awesome workshop leader, and food. What more could we asked for. I was first surprised about how easy it was to work with metal. When we first started making our metal figurines, I didn't realize that we started. It felt like we were playing. We were cutting the gutter guards and transforing them into a head, arms, legs, and a body. Augue took us step by step into creating our own figurines. The biggest challenge with using aluminum gutter guards was that they were extremely too flexible and it can be very sharp. I kept folding the gutter guard to thin and everyone cut or scratch themsleves at least once. But this did not stop anyone from creating their metal person.

The metal wires that we used were to form the body into what looked a bit like muscles. We all used about three different size metal wires. The wires were push through the gutter guard and wrap around different parts of the body, such as the head, arms, and legs. The thicker the wire was, the harder it was to wrap the figurine. As we were working on the figures, Augie would tell us interesting and hysterical stories about the people that he had met and growing up in the Congos. Every now and then he was dance a bit too. With all the laughing, you would think that we weren't working. But by the end of our workshop we had a standing metal figure. Augie promise that the teens will get to decorate their figurines in the next workshop.

First Panther Field Trip

Hey gang. Our first field trip for Panther went brilliantly. We got 5 teens to get out of thier comfort zone for a trip to the museum. here's the over view...

Big Idea: Get the teens aquainted with thier new Wednesday working envirnment, inform them about the activities to come in the cycle, introduc them to Augie, our resident artist, and get them interested in the study of sound through ebtertaining games and challenges.

Dates: Wednesday, January 18th

Groups Participating: Panther Teens

Attendance: 5 teens including Joshua, Jonathoan, Michael, Eddie and Thomas along with Augie, Saafir, Gabe and myself

Materials: Bucket o' objects that make interesting sounds

Directions:
Since we checked out several activities in the hour and a half we had, I'll run through them and explain a bit about each...

1) For an icebreaker, we played the game I called "rhythm challenge". We circled up and sat so we could stomp our feet. We then all picked a differant short sound we could create, such as a snap, a clap, a grunt, a word, etc. After all of us announcing our sounds to the group, I then explained the rules. All of us stomp the rhythm to "we will rock you", but in place of the claps, the person who starts places thier sound. Immediatly after, they then place another persons sound in the group. That person then must repeat thier sound, then make another persons sound. If a person messes up on the rhythm by not mimicing or choosing a sound in time, they are out. Definatley run a couple practice round first, cause it took our crew a while to get in the rhythm. However when we started the competition iwas fierce and fun. If the gruops really good, pick up the tempo for more of a challenge.

2) Next I explained our upcoming cycle, showed them the power tools they'd be using on Wednesdays, and told them about our various visiting artists they would get to meet, including...

3) Augie! We spent about 15 minutes with Augie where he gave a little bio, we checked out his works online, and passed around a few sculptures and musical instruments he made.

4) We then passed out snacks and proceeded to watch a video where the subject matter is sound: "Stomp". As we watched I asked them to watch for the various materials used to make such a variety of sounds.

5) After snacks and 15 minutes of the film, we listed on the board all the different objects they could think of that they saw used in the film, then we picked a few of those and discussed how many differant sounds could be made with just that one object. This activity led to what I thought was the most fun part of the day, the...

6) "5 sound challenge"! I had each of us pick 3 objects from a box of assorted materials (ie, pipes, wooden blocks, tin plates, wooden spoons, etc.) Then I gave them 5 minutes to discover 5 differant sounds with thier objects. We then individually presented them to the group. After that, I had them each pick thier favorite of thier sounds, and again sit in a circle facing eachother. We then beat the same "We will rock you" rhythm, but tried making our sounds in different orders. For example first we simply started on one end and went around the cicle one at a time. Then we started on one end and split so 2 were playing at once until it came all the way around. Then we built up one at a time and came down one at a time. Fun stuff.

7) Finally, we filled out paperwork and gave away T-shirts to those who have turned all thier things in.

Overall, we had a blast and left these teens wanting to come back for more. I'm definatley looking forward to out next Wednesday here.

myles

near forgotten pics!

Before we move too far ahead, I have to throw these pics on the blog. These are various images from ALA's showcase day on Wednesday, December 21st that I forgot to include on past blogs. The first few are the the Pico teens working hard together under serious pressure to complete thier chain reactions in time to get them upstairs. I love some of these shots because of the intense teamwork you can see going on. The second set are pics from Bluedot's party downstairs in the studio, which was just as much of a success as the one up-stair's due to such a high turnout of parent participation. We even took Wesly's IR powered car outside for a test spin. However, like Wesley, many of the teens are looking forward to when we will showcase thier projects upstairs for the public. Should be sweet. I especially look forward to when we can get more brownies like the ones we had that day as well. mmmmmm, brownies. Great day overall.

myles

Let The Cycle Begin (for Panther)

Big Idea: We had a meeting for all Panther teens to inform them of the up-coming cycle and of benefits for joining or continuing thier membership in DesignIT. The meeting also included two questionaires to fill out, one to check proficiancy on activities we will pursue in the next cycle, and the other to find out more on thier interests in music. We then followed the meeting with an activity outside to briefly introduce them on the concepts of listening to sound around them.

Dates: Wednesday, January 11th

Groups Participating: Panther Teens

Attendance: 7 Panther Teens including Dominique, Jazmine, Joshua, Thomas, and Braela

What We Covered:
After a welcome back, I went over how many hours each person had completed thus far, and announced two more additions to our official membership since they had completed thier twelve hours. With the addition of Thomas and Eddie, with Lianthia, Marcus, Jonathon and Michael, that's a total of 6. However, there's good news and bad news to add to that. Good news is Braela and Joshua are two hours away from also joining, however, bad news is Marquas found some basketball friends outside the club, and Lianthias moving away. So even with two more we're stayin at six.
We then listed together as a reminder the benefits of being a member of DesignIT. These included free museum membership, free DesignIT T-shirts, new DesignIT journals, weekly fieldtrips, possible paid internships during the summer, and a positive extra-cirricular activity listed on college applications.
Next we had them complete the proficiency questionaires, so we can have an idea of what they knew before the cycle. Then in a few weeks, we'll fill them out again to see what this cycle taught them.
After a snack break and fiding out everyone's favorite part of thier break, we moved onto letting them know what the next cycle includes. I told them about exploring various sounds with particular objects, learning power tolls to build sound machines out of the sounds we found, then exploring the Midi software to create our own songs with crickets. To accompany this, we next filled out a music questionaire to get some insite on thier interests in music, which we then discussed the answers as a group to get the teens to get to realize some of thier same interests with one another. Some of the questions and answers included...

Q. If you could instantly know how to play any instrument, which instrument would it be?
A. drums
A. electric guitar
A. violin

Q. Name 5 different styles of music…
A. Rap
A.Trance
A. R and B
A. Blues
A. Pop

Q. What are your top 3 favorite music artists/groups?
A. Chris Brown
A. Usher
A. Slim Thuga
A. 2 Pac

Q. Where do you like to listen to music?
A. Car
A. Room
A. Bathroom
A. School

Q. What do you think was the first musical instrument ever made?
A. Drums
A. Reed Instruments
A. Xylaphone

Q. If you were to try and build an instrument, which would you try to build?
A. Guitar
A. Turntables
A. Drums
A. Tuba

This activity simply got them to think in the direction of music and open up to eachother. Its funny how people are proud and willing to openly share thier interest in music far more than many other things. There seems to be a pride in the music one listens to, like it represents them in some fashion.
Finally we went outside and did the one-minute litsening activity. Closing the eyes made a big differance, and although giggling is usually involved, it lends itself to the activity when answering the follow up questions. Some include...
-Name two noises that were each, without repeating the same one.
-What was the furthest noise you heard?
-What was the closest noise you heard?
-What noise did you hear that you hadn't noticed before we started?
-What noise did you hear that you had notced before we started?
-What was the highest pitch noise you heard?
-What was the lowest pitch noise you heard?

Best Part:
The music questionaire and the listening activity. Tey sincerly seemed to be interested in eachother's responses.

Worst Part: I had promised them a weekly field trip starting this week. We had discussed with the club on Monday about needing a van for a ride to the museum on Thursday to work with Saafir, and they said it would not be a problem. It was. Now the damage control comes back to me and my false promises. So we have learned we cannot depend on the club for rides. From now on, Wednesdays are our field trip days, and we can only depend on ourselves. The #1 thing that hinders attendence in DesignIT is false promises. Make sure once you give these teens a reason to get excited, you follow through. If you do not, thier revenge is through no longer participating. I'm heading over to do some healing today, but let this be a warning to the rest of you - no promises until they are 100% possible.

Overall, they seem excited for what's to come, as long as I can bring them back with some exciting stuff. Should be exciting.

myles

Holiday Animation Festival

So with a few obstacles in the way, we managed four workdays, December 13th, 14th, 16th and 19th, before leading up to our culminating event, the Holiday Animation Festival. We moved the showcase day to a day earlier because Wednesday would be a half day, and many of our teens would not be there. In the time we had to create, the teens managed to finish some short but sweet interactive stories and simple games. Finally, thier newly gained knowledge of Microworlds programming was proudly displayed in thier work...

Big Idea: Set up the teen room for Panther kids to wander through our "gallery" of interactive works while asking questions of the artists.

Dates: Tuesday, December 20th

Groups Participating: DesignIT teens and all Panther kids who wanted to attend

Attendance: 6 Panther DesignIT teens including Eddie, Michael, Joshua, Thomas, Leanthia, and Breala, and at least 20 Panther kids

Software: Microworlds

Hardware: 1 laptop, 1 power cable and 1 mouse for each project presented.

Materials: Paper and markers to label each person's laptop with the artist's name and title of thier piece, and create and hand out flier's for the gallery's opening.

Directions: Have an open gallery setting where kids can grab snacks and drinks and walk around to try each interactive game or story and ask artists how they created it.

Associated Concepts: Creates an envirnment where teens can be challenged by questions asked about how they went about creating, and provides a sense of pride while showing off thier hard work.

Best Part: My favorite part was the impromtu Q and A session we held, where, after viewing the works, all the kids sat down like a studio audience and asked the artists anything they wanted to about thier peices. It put the teens on the spot to talk about thier work, which Lianthia and Thomas really were great at (see pics). They took the teaching role and ran with it. One of my favorite questions a kid asked was, "What does it feel like to create something?" The teens answered it sincerly, and I believe it summed up the good feelings they had about the pieces. A few of my favorite pieces included...
Eddie's "Skating Monkey"
Jonathon's "Stampeed Down Under"
Lianthia's "The Chase"
and Joshua's "Fly"

Worst Part: Not having enough cupcakes for all. Definatley make sure the snack amount is even and just when dealing with the little ones.

Improvements: More time for creation of projects, however the weather was partially responsible for that. Just make sure to organize a calender before you start any cycle, and check it with the clubs for any potential obstacles or interuptions.

Learning to Listen

Big Idea: Listening for natural sounds
Date: Tuesday; January 10, 2006
Groups Participating: Northside Boys & Girls Club
Attendance: 12
Materials: A stop watch, and at least three different locations.
Directions: Find a location, close your eyes and concentrate on listening for one whole minute. Try and listen for the furthest, closest, loudest and faintest sounds. Example: The park, inside the gym, and a parking lot.
Associated Concepts: This will help inspire students to
find ideas for musical instruments that are naturally occurring in their environment.
Best Part: Students realize how much effort listening requires. This allows them to become aware of sounds they would normally overlook.
Worst Part: It can be difficult for the students to keep from being distracted for one whole minute.
Improvements: Three distinct locations, try inside and outside. A location of high traffic, and one with little to no traffic. Bring examples of instruments created
when inspired by nature.

Let the Cycle Begin (Northside)

Big Idea: Recruiting for DesignIt at the Northside Boys and Girls Club
Dates: Monday; January 9, 2006
Groups Participating: J. P. Elder Middle School, North Side High School
Attendance: 30
Materials: Attention and enthusiasms
Associated Concepts: Getting the kids excited about the new cycle. Midi, Music and Madness
Best Part: How excited and receptive the kids were.
Improvements: Needed props and fluency models to show what their prospective projects will look like.

Pics from ALA Showcase

Date: Wednesday, December 21st 2005

Sorry I didn't post these earlier, but these are some great shots of the setting up and presenting Pico's chain-reation at the ALA Showcase Day in the ExploraZone. It went very well and all that attended were very impressed. One of my personal favorite sections is pictured here. The second to last image posted is a pic of the section that used a sequence of circuits to run the reaction from the bottom of the peg board to the top. Like many of the sections, it did not always work, however on the second attempt to run the entire chain, it was a success.

Chrismas Party

Date: Monday, December 19th

Another surprize that hindered further progress was a Christmas party at the club that distracted the teens from working. Acknowledging that not much would be accomplished, I set up the laptops for an open studio setting, but then busted out two digital cameras and let them have fun with them around the club. Above are some artistic results...

SNOWDAYS!!!!

Dates: December 7th and 8th, 2005

Like I said, a few things got in the way of having all of the assigned work days for our final projects, including an ice storm. But as you'll see, even with less time, the projects and the Animation Cylce Final Challenge went well. Although it wasn't this bad, the way this town shut down, you'd think it was.

Animation cycle final challenge meeting

So, to get the teens excited about going into the last week and a half before break, on Monday, December 12th, I decided to present the last part of the cycle as a challenge with a final presentation at the end. Here's how I put it...

Animation cycle final challenge

From Monday, December 12 until Wednesday, December 21stUsing what you have learned in Microworlds, we challenge you to create your own interactive animated movie/ video game.
The movie will…
-involve one central character that you choose to animate, that will interact and move through 4 different scenes.
-have your character attempting to complete a video game maze in one of the four scenes, although it does not matter what order the scenes go in.
-tell some sort of story, though it does not have to be written in the movie.
-be outlined on the storyboard provided and cleared with Myles or Gabe before you begin production.

On Wednesday, December 21st, all projects will be displayed at ourHoliday Animation Festival, where food, candy and snacks will be provided. Good Luck!

Days and times to work…
Monday, December 12, 2005…5pm to 7pmTuesday,
December 13, 2005…5pm to 6:30pm
Wednesday, December 14, 2005…5pm to 7pm
Friday, December 16, 2005…4:30pm to 6:30pm
Monday, December 19, 2005…5pm to 7pm
Tuesday, December 20, 2005…5pm to 7pm
(Please remember to sign in any hours you work)
Holiday Animation Festival…Wednesday, December 21, 2005…5pm to 7pm

With a snow day, a Christmas party and a half day, a few dates were changed but this was the general challenge leading up to the Festival.

More to come...

myles

Microworlds Virtual Animation - Game Creations

Again, I definately would have seperated the two conepts of the virtuals stories and game creations into two seperate periods, but alas, you live you learn. But this particular activity certain teen latched onto and had a blast.

Microworlds Virtual Animation - Game Creations

Big Idea: Provide the tools in Microworlds for the teens to be confident in creating thier own basic video game.

Dates: Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Groups Participating: Panther Boys and Girls Club Teens

Attendance: 5 students - Joshua, Eddie, Michael, Leanthis and Braela

Software: Microworlds

Hardware: One laptop and one mouse per student

Directions: This activity propells the teens into creating more complex programs through two new conepts - the programming of buttons with varying commands and the introduction to the turtle and its potential for activities. This will be in my improvement section, but I definately would create, with the teens, a visual record of all commands the turtle responds to. Here's an idea - mabye make this an interactive activity by listing all sorts of actions, then have them guess the how it would be said in the programming. After its been guessed, have the one who guessed closest or correctly write it up on a a board or sketch pad. Just an idea.
Again, if I ran through all the commands to teach, this blog would take some time, so be sure to create your own and learn the steps. The most basic game I taught to start them out was the simple maze where the turtle would not be able to pass throught walls, and buttons created include start, stop, up, down, left, right. Then using the various characters and backrounds, thier creativity takes it from there.

Associated Concepts: Pragramming, programming, programming.

Best Part: Joshua's "fly" and thomas' maze definately were the most successful products created in game creations. When the kids played them on our showcase day, these were two of the most attractive projects to them for sure.

Worst Part: Not having the visual for commands. For that reason, every 10 seconds Gabe and I needed to help a teen, which worked out because only 4 teens were working at a time, but I have a feeling if the commands were provided it would require far less work for us and far more participation with the teens.

Improvements: Again, create with the teens a visual record of all commands the turtle responds to. Mabye make this an interactive activity by listing all sorts of actions, then have them guess the how it would be said in the programming. After its been guessed, have the one who guessed closest or correctly write it up on a a board or sketch pad. Also, we didn't have time this time, but when the class begins, make creating the mazes a competion where at the end of the period evryone plays eachothers, and it is voted on whose is the most successful, but most difficult. The year before we deemed the winner the title "Maze Master".

Overall, the teens who have never done this do love it. Create your own first, create a visual command guide, make a competition of it, and you'll have a blast.

myles