LIveology Lab: Week Four

This was our Animation Weekend with Design IT Studios in the Liveology Lab. We kicked things off Friday night since Free Family Friday was bumped up one week due to the Mad Scientist Ball. We pulled out the Digital Blue cameras to create some stop-motion animation movies. On another table we had paper and pencil ready to make Thaumatrobes and simple flip books. This weekend was also started National Engineers Week. Engineers from Lockheed and IBM came to volunteer at the museum and show off some of their latest technology. Their was the animatronic face, radio helicopters, robots and spider robots. We also had a flight simulator and various other activities involving engineering and physics. This was a great opportunity for the interns to work alongside people who have made engineering and technology their life's work. It was also another great chance for the interns to interact with the public and show them just what exactly Design IT Studios is all about.

Liveology Lab: Week Three

This weekend we brought back a crowd favorite Spin Art. Like the first weekend of Liveology Lab Spin Art was a smashing success. Just in sight measuring I would say we had more visitors this weekend. The interns have become real pros atworking with the visitors, especially with the children. Rebecca Rico a high school freshman showed a nack in working with the toddler aged kiddos. One of the biggest skilles I had hoped the interns would take away from this experince was learning to interact with visitors. From the these past weekends I see that they indeed are learing this.

ALA Gear up for Photo Motion

Objective: Design IT Studios teens from Applied Learning Academy (ALA) are finishing up their Light Cycle with Photo Motion.

Time: January 2007

Activity: With Light Cycle coming to its end, the Design IT teens from ALA are wrapping it up with Photo Motion. Photo Motion is using the same setting as we did in Light Painting, which is slowing down the shutter speed to 15 seconds and turning off the flash. The materials needed for this activity was a flashlight, a tripod, and a digital camera. Timing is very important in Photo Motion. As shown in the picture to left, Joe is playing two characters a bully and a hero. Allie set in the middle must hold still for 15 sec so the photographer can take a shot of Joe in two different spots. When the characters are ready the camera person must tell everyone to hold still for 5 sec. and then the light person must cover the light source while the characters are changing positions. The ending result would look similar to the picture above.

Some of the Photo Motion activities were for the ALA teens to make self shots of themselves, combining light painting to the shots, perspective, and the final product was to combine all the little activities together. The teens were again split into 3 groups. They had to tell a story through Photo Motion by using nonverbal communication, incorporating the exercises that was mention earlier. Photo Motion is challenging and rewarding. The ALA teens took a few weeks working on their story. Some frustration for them were: standing still for so long, working in the dark can be painful, and the timing needed to be accurate for the shot to be clear. For the most part, the teens love Photo Motion and was excited to show off there stories to their peers.

Martin Jitter Bugs

After a week break at Martin due to snowy weather we continue our new partnership and bring these teens Jitter Bugs. Jitter Bugs simple motors connected to a single AA batterey with a glue stick propeller. The Jitter Bugs have a robo art quality in that the simplicity of the feet aid in its jittering abilities. These legs are paper clips stuck into the Styrofoam bodies. Feathers, googlie eyes, and pipe cleaners a great for decorating these curious creatures.
The kids at martin loved making these and by the end of out time at the club had over a dozen little bugs running around the floor. This is a great activity to capture the attention and curiosity of our new prospective Design IT members.

ALA Light Painting Extravaganza

Objective: The Design IT teen from Applied Learning Academy (ALA) working with light painting.

Time: December 2006

Activity: The ALA Design IT teens are the first to work with the light painting section to the Light Cycle. Light painting is drawing with a small source of light in front of a camera. The digital camera must have the ability to slow the shutter speed to about 15 seconds. When the shutter speed is slowed down, the camera is able to only capturing the light and movement in front of it. The room has to be completely dark or other objects or the painter is in the background.

The first part of the activity was to practice drawing different shapes, then following that, teens had to draw actual pictures of animals. In the picture to the left, Allie and Hannah, were practicing how to make a kangaroo. With Christmas around the corner, the last activity for light painting was to make Christmas decoration for the Holiday party as seen below with the mistletoe.

Pumpkin Carving with PICO crickets

Objective: Pumpkin carving and adding the PICO crickets, motors, and sound to the pumpkin.

Time: October 2006

Activity: Today was pumpkin carving time! It was just your everyday run of the mill pumpkin carving, but with the use of the technological PICO, the pumpkins are semi-mobile with Halloweens sounds coming from the insides. To the left the Design IT teens from the Applied Learning Academy (ALA) are working at cleaning and carving the pumpkins as thoroughly as possible before programing the crickets. The teens were split into four groups. Each team member were asked to assign themselves a duty so everyone was able to have a turn with the pumpkin. One of the requirements of the pumpkins was to make something move around it or connected to it to make the pumpkin more interactive. Some other optional programing was to make the pumpkin light up and/or make sounds. All of the groups made two out of the three suggestions. The pumpkins were then displayed in the large window section were Museum School parents and guest were able to interact with the pumpkin through the window. This activity was success and festive for the season. A few of the coaches took the activity to the Boys and Girls Clubs and the Design IT Studios Intern were eager to be involved towards creating their own PICO Pumpkins.

Stephanie cleaning out her pumpkin.















Tim Burton's inspired pumpkin getting ready to come to life.

Shadow Art

Objective: Shadow Art with Design IT Studios teens at the Applied Learning Academy (ALA) site.

Date: November 2006

Activity: The Shadow Art is a new cycle involving a lamp, white butcher paper, various woods, wires, and craft materials. Shadow art is a way to create a picture through cast lights on some butcher paper. They objects making the shadow generally did not look like the object that is on the butcher paper. On the picture to the left, is a practice run for one of the group to test out how they far the material had to be and how thick the materials needed to be. The teens were broken into four small groups. The first day, the ALA teens had to go online and find a picture of their favorite artist painting or image. After they each printed a picture, I placed the pictures on the board and placed their group names in a hat for a drawing. The first grouped picked had the option to pick any picture from the board. From there the teens had 10 days to build their projects before moving onto the next exercise. The next following exercise was to make a moving shadow art involving the PICO cricket.

The next part for shadow are was to make a shadow turn into a scene or picture using PICO crickets. This was challenging for the ALA design IT teens because they couldn't cut the material to look exactly like the object of the cast shadow.

Team Building at ALA

Activity: Design IT Studios team building at Applied Learning Academy (ALA)

Date: Aug. 2006

Participants: ALA teens that were active in Design IT for a year.

Objective: In the beginning of the school year, Design IT Studios program would be active again at the middle school. One of our activities the coaches likes to redo is the Team Building Exercise. Throughout the whole year, the teens are broken into various groups. At times, these groups are not with there friends. This causes friction in the group, which may cause a creative working block. The Team Building Exercises helps the teen figure out how to work with each other by communicating their idea in a positive way to make it to there goal. They go through 3 to 4 different exercise by the end of the two day Team Building Cycle. In the picture above, the ALA teens are not allowed to place their foot on the grass and have to make it to a poll 20 feet away using 3 wooden planks. Other rules applied was that they were not allowed to make negative comments or they would have to start over.

Best part: When splitting the team up into their groups, being an observer, you can see the way the teens process the exercise and work their way through to their goal.

Worst part: Not being able to give your advice, even if they asked for help, they had to figure the exercise for themselves.

Photo Shop

In the grand tradition of fusing art and technology, we have here at Design IT Studios are giving the Northside teens a lesson in Photo editing. This introduces them to a new computer program they can add to their collection of acquired skills that will hopefully help lead them to a career in the IT industry. With the help of Eric, our resident computer guy we installed and learned to use Photoshop; we then intern introduced this to the teens.
For our first activity Eric and myself looked for pictures of well know monuments from around the world. The teens would chose from these wonders and with a few directions from us, place themselves somewhere in the picture.
We found that working one-on-one with a few teens each session produced better results that if we were to give a group presentation. This also allows us to get to knowthe teens on a more personal level.
The best part of this project was when Salazar, an 8th action start image grader at J.P.ElderMiddle School saw some of our sample pictures and was so amazed that we could do such things with a just few pictures and a computer. He felt learning to do this himself would bean impossible task. Salazar wanted to have himself hang from the top of the Statue of Liberty to give him the without the actual danger. He was utterly amazed when his picture was finished and he had
indeed learn to use Photoshop.
I feel that projects which have a real world use and popular appeal are the best to bring to these kids and to the community. Shorter sample type projects are great for introducing a new idea technology or program. Once the teens have become familiarized with such programs they can then delve deeper into the program and challenge themselves with more complex activities.

Liveology Lab: Week Two...Bugs

We had another wonderful weekend of fun here in the Liveology Lab; Our theme was Bugs! On Saturday we brought back popular feature from the museums previous exhibit Robots, the Jitter bug. The Jitter Bug apart from being a dance from the WWII era is an activity involving simple motors. We took a motor small enough to run off on AA battery. Add a glue stick for propulsion, paper clips for legs and a Styrofoam body and you have a jittering creature ready for exploration. With a few accessories from the studios crafts collection and we turned our creations in to bugs.
In keeping with our bug theme, on Saturday we created Throwie Bugs. Throwie Bugs spawned from the Throwie and Blinky Bug Projects we encountered this summer. With a couple of LED lights which run of a lithium battery we gave our bugs life. Wood chips and Popsicle sticks a great for bug bodies which can be decorated using colored markers. Adding a small magnet makes the bug ready for display. These were also a neat souvenir for our guest to take home as a memento from their trip to the museum.
I have found that our more popular activities do not take long to make and can be made quite simply. It always leaves a good impression of our museum to the guest when they can literally take something away from it.