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.