 Hi, my name is John Omokubo and I am the Director of Technology for St. Matthew's Parish School. We are a preschool through eighth grade Episcopal day school in Pacific Palisades, California. And in addition to directing the program and managing the technology in the school, I'm fortunate to be able to teach a seventh grade technology class and a seventh eighth elective class that I've been able to design from the ground up. It's called Creator Studio and that'll be the focus of this video. Before I get into the details, however, I feel it's necessary to give you some background as to how this all came about and what led us into the direction we are heading now. About three years ago, we had the opportunity to create a new space from the ground up. Our old computer lab wasn't getting much use since we had implemented a one-to-one program and so we had a nice space to work from. Our goal was to design a learning environment where we could encourage project development and making, using tools like new tools, 3D printers, laser cutters, and old tools, drill presses, miter saws. All within the context of expanding our efforts into more project-based learning. We wanted the space to be flexible so that students could make the space work best for them and so this meant things like a furniture on wheels that folded and nested tables, walls with large writable surfaces, shelves that could be arranged on the fly. We started our research by looking at some schools that were already doing these things. So we visited some schools up in Northern California that were sort of deep into this stuff already. We also read the book Make Space from the D school at Stanford just to get our brains around the idea of looking at spaces differently. And we also visited places like Apple and the Exploratorium up in San Francisco just to really wrap our heads around what it was that we wanted to accomplish. And all of these things helped us to formulate our own ideas for our spaces. The end result was actually two spaces. Our first space, what we kind of call our clean space is Pearl. This was the former computer lab. Pearl stands for Project and Idea Realization Lab. And it's a place for 2D and 3D design and coding electronics, robotics, using microcontrollers, things like Arduino and Hummingbird. And the second space is a somewhat semi-outdoor space. And that's called Pearl Terrace. And Pearl Terrace has a location for students to work outside underneath a canopy. But inside, there's also room for our tools like the drill press and the miter saws and handheld power tools, along with the laser cutter. Now that you have some background, we can dive into the details of Creator Studio. Creator Studio has actually itself gone through a few different iterations and it's currently designed as follows. Students learn about and experience three key topics, electronics, mechanical motion, and a quick introduction to physical computing, which is really robotics. Each of these topics is covered in the context of a project and they're all open-ended so that students determine the direction, the design and the end result in each. I used to teach 2D and 3D design and digital fabrication in this class, but I realized that it was only, you know, hitting those kids that were in this elective. And so now it's embedded into the technology course I teach so that all students get that exposure. And so given that, I can now expect all students who walk into Creator Studio to have that background as well. After experiencing these three projects, students spend the remainder of the course pursuing their own personal project. It can integrate electronics or mechanical motion or robotics or it might have nothing to do with any of those things. It just depends on what they want to pursue. The key is that their personal project is original. Even if it's inspired by something they saw online or elsewhere, they just they just can't put together a kit that they purchase. Kits are great, but the outcome is known. And so there's very little creative design involved. In going through each of these projects, students follow the design, build, iterate process. That's something that I explicitly teach about. And in the design phase, students must come up with an initial idea which is then sketched out and then shared amongst their classmates. They discuss their ideas and their given time to change things, modify things just on the piece of paper itself or the workbook. And so sometimes projects are changed entirely based upon the feedback and the sharing out. The design is then refined to include a materials list and true measurements, if possible, or at least as far as their as far as their strand of thinking would go and then once approved, they can move on to building. During the build phase, students gather the materials that they had on their list of materials. They might also in in going through all of this find that there are other materials available that they want to use, and that's fine. And they generally begin with paper and cardboard prototypes. Before moving on to sturdier materials like plastic or wood, but it really depends because sometimes projects stay within those prototype materials. Sometimes cardboard is good enough. In fact, in some cases, cardboard is better because of the type of flexibility that it has over something like wood or plastic. After their initial build phase, students move into what we're calling the iterate phase. And this is where they can make changes to their their build, their prototype, or they might also at this point move into some of their final materials to start to start building and creating. It's it's interesting. I think it's important to state that all of these things, this design, build, iterate process, while concrete in terms of being able to say this is one phase, this is the second and this is the third, that works for explaining it. But in real terms, these things are much more fluid and much more, I guess, organic and less staged, meaning that the designing and the building and the iterating all kind of happen in some ways together. We I try to distinguish the point at which we move from one phase to another, especially at the beginning, because they don't really understand that part of it. So it's helpful to say we've now moved into the build phase. But what happens in real life is that they sort of move through these three phases and they they go back. They go back to the design phase when things don't quite work the way they should. They come back and redesign the way that a lever works or the way that a circuit is wired or what have you. And then they come back and they build again. And so it really is something that's much more fluid than than what's on paper. The first project is called Light Up Spin. And this project is designed to give students experience in designing and building a very simple circuit. The students start by getting some hands on practice using some prebuilt circuit blocks. We discuss the concepts of power and load. So, for example, battery blocks or power, while an LED block or a incandescent bulb or a motor would serve as load. We then introduce other blocks like switches, which are considered control blocks because they can determine if power is turned on or off or switched in one direction or another. We'll spend one class period experimenting by connecting various blocks together to predict and to see what happens. After this point, students begin to think about their own circuit block and they have the following criteria to go by. The project must fit on a three and a half inch square wood block. It can be no no taller than 10 inches. And it can include one of the following elements, LEDs, incandescent bulb or motor. Because it's powered by a battery, the choice of options is small and you can't use more than one and it allows really sort of encourages them to think creatively about which direction they want to head. So it must be powered by a battery source and we include a switch into the circuit. And then most importantly, it has to represent something in real life, whether that's a car or a a daisy that turns in circles or in some cases like this year, a pineapple. So it just depends on whatever they choose to allow them, obviously to be as creative as possible and what they want it to represent. But it must be something that we can that relates to real life. Project two is on mechanical motion. It's called Shake Your Groove. And this second project is brand new for me this year. Having done Creative Studio for a couple of years now, I've always felt that one missing piece in my curriculum was an opportunity for students to experience and design a project that involved mechanical movement. It turns out that oftentimes during their personal project, they end up with some need for a mechanical element but they don't really have any prior experience in how to use it or how to do it. For example, how do you apply gears or levels or cams to a project if you have no idea how they work? And so I believe personally that a really creative way to introduce this concept is through automata. Students are introduced to the concept of automata on day one of this project. They see a few video examples online and learn about the concept of motion. And they see examples of key components like levers and cams and cranks and shafts and gears and how those things interact with each other to make things move. I have some examples in class that I built for students to test out and observe and to really look and analyze how one kind of motion might lead to another. This is the only project that students work in pairs or small group. The reason I've chosen to do this is that there's both a coding component and a building component. So it benefits students to work together to coordinate tasks and establish roles. We use the Hummingbird Robotics Kit and the Create Labs Visual Programmer. My first year, I used Arduino, but the learning curve was a little high for the amount of time we had available in class. And so Hummingbird allows students to get up and running pretty quickly. After learning how to use the coding interface, students build a project that interacts with the environment. They can choose to make it detect something in front of it using a distance sensor or it can hear a sound or sense a light source. In reaction, the project can move with servos or DC motors. It can light up or even change color. It can talk back or play music. I enjoy seeing the creative solutions students come up with in response to this task. That's an overview of the first three projects. And while they are each important in their own way, the final personal project is where students are completely challenged to bring out their creative mindset. As you know, in the end it's all about the kids. So I thought I would finish with interviews, covering three different personal projects from the student's point of view. Hi guys. Can you tell me what motivated you to sign up for Creator Studio? Do you wanna go? Sure. So I didn't even know a 3D printer existed and I thought it was really cool that you could print something that would turn out 3D and something that had never been created before. And the laser cutter, how you can cut perfect circles or perfect anything into what I thought that was really one more opportunity to use it. Yeah, and when Mr. and Mr. Kumbo gave us the presentation about Creator Studio, all the different like buildings and stuff that they made were kind of amazing. And so I just wanted to see if we could be a part of that. Terrific. Can you tell viewers about your personal project? Sure. Well, we built this like wooden light box with different circles on the side so the light would shine through. And originally we weren't gonna have this like rice kind of paper that we used to kind of like block the light a little bit. And so we just used LED lights and we built like a light kind of box. We wrapped the LED lights around a cardboard cylinder and put it inside of the box, which we soldered to wires and then to an adapter. So we have a remote that can dim it and turn it on and off. And then it just plugs into the wall. What words of advice would you give to future students of Creator Studio? Definitely, when you introduce a topic, start thinking about your project then and not just making lights work. Don't leave it to the last minute. Don't leave it to the last minute and definitely think about your process because when we were building our lights we originally meant to build one or to build one and we ended up building two. And so we had to use wood glue, which you could only do like one side at a time. Otherwise it would stick together and then come out when you're doing the lopsided. So we had to use rubber bands on yours to hold it together and then on my second side. Yeah, certainly managing your time is a big key. And also dream big. There isn't anything you can't do in this class. I did things that I didn't think were possible and so definitely go for whatever you get. Yeah. Ryan, can you tell me about your personal project? So we decided to make cryptics and most people don't know what that is. It's actually a term coined by the author Dan Brown in his novel, The DaVinci Code. But it's basically a Hadlock but inside there's an open space for whatever you want put in there. And it slides in with its keys and there are different locking holders for the turning wheels that go around. And once you have to slide the key in it's just basically a giant key. So I go. And once it slides in. You don't wanna show us your key at this point. Yeah, so the key goes in. Nice. And then you can lock it. Cool. And you can't get it out unless you get the exact combination. Terrific. So that's my cryptics. Thanks, Ryan. Lena, what area of study was particularly interesting for you? I really liked laser cutting or I'm sorry, 3D printing and soldering on because you can really do everything with it. You can make anything out of 3D printing. You can just design, you know, the possibilities are endless and you can create anything you want. And soldering is cool because it really gives you like a better understanding of how things work, how your project works and you really like put it together from every little piece, that's what makes it cool. Lena, can you tell me about your personal project? Yeah, this is my personal project and what I did was I 3D printed my last name in the 3D printer in white and I included these little holes to stick LEDs in there. And I put the LEDs in there. I glued them in hot glue and then I used these red and white wires to circuit them all together and I soldered the LEDs to the wires and then I put restrictors on them as well so in case they kind of soak up left over voltage. Resistors. Resistors, I don't know, I don't know. Okay, that's okay. And then all the other wires to these two final wires that went into this and went into, I think it's called 12-fold. Uh-huh, 12-fold adapter. And that will just be plugged into the wall and with this remote, you can turn it on and it'll change colors. You can also dim it. You can dim it and it'll just change colors on its own. Awesome. Did you have any, if given more time, would you have changed the project at all or? So all you can see was, but that's pretty much all I would do. Thanks, Lena. Thank you.