Makers Club
These are some of the activities and resources from our Maker's Club, which started in Spring 2014. In Spring 2015 we on Wednesday afternoons after school until 4:30 pm. Each week we try to record some kind of video or take and share photos to show what we are MAKING and learning!
May 13, 2015
Mr. Lunsford, a Boeing Engineer, came and talked to our Maker's Club students today about being an Aerospace Engineer! He shared a great presentation about his own career and background, gave advice to our students, and then led them in a balsa wood glider STEM activity. Here is a video compilation of clips from his presentation, as well as some photos from our great after-school time together. More photos are available in this Flickr set. Thanks Mr Lunsford for sharing with our students today!
May 8, 2015
More updates will be posted here soon... This is a video we watched part of, discussing Redstone in Minecraft.
April 29, 2015
Our "new thing" today in Makers Club was learning about building and flying hovercraft in the free game, "Hovercraft: Build Fly Retry." One of our students discovered a basic sphere design works great, and scored over 3000 points in the game using this design!
Other students today built Rube Goldberg machines, experimented with Sphero and its apps, used the Makey Makey, and built in Minecraft. Several helped Dr Fryer build a roller coaster around the spaceship students built earlier in the semester. What a cool sunset this was!
April 22, 2015
Maker's Club was back today after having to cancel last week for a presentation Dr Fryer did for YPS first year teachers at the request of our administration. We started today by spending about 20 minutes learning some of the basics of block-based coding in Scratch Jr on the iPad. It's a free app for both iOS and Android tablets.
Students then chose which Makers Club activity they wanted to do with others or individually. Several chose to create projects on the iPads with Toontastic. Here's a short animated video Drew made:
Students also chose to create in our Makers Studio Rube Goldberg station, create game controllers with playdough using the Makey Makey, and build in MinecraftEDU. Here's a short video with several segments, as students explain what they were building or creating.
April 8, 2015
Today we took attendance by sharing what each student would buy for our STEM classroom and Makers Club if they had $100 to $1000 for a shopping spree. Here were some of the ideas, as well as links to video channels that were shared.
MakerBot 3D Printers (viewable at the Microsoft Store in Penn Square Mall) - We also viewed the video on this "3D Printed Ear" article
Ollie (remote controlled robotic cylinder by the makers of Sphero)
Kerbal Space Program (software)
Students got an introduction today to the "Makey Makey" and had a chance to play a variety of online games with one, connected to the computer with bananas. To learn more check out this video!
Students had a choice today to continue playing in MinecraftEDU, exploring and experimenting with the MakeyMakey or going to one of our Maker Studio stations. Some students chose Green Screen and Sphero in Makers Studio. Can you tell how much fun these students were having today in Makers Club! Yes - STEM & Makers Club ROCKS! :-)
April 1, 2015
We started session 2 of Makers Club today by getting acquainted a bit (sharing what food we would have delivered to our STEM class to eat today if we had unlimited funds!) and by playing in a Creative World in MinecraftEDU. Here are a few screenshots of the creations we built together. Originally students wanted to build an underground mansion, but ended up creating more above-ground structures including corrals and the StarShip Enterprise!
March 23, 2015
We wrapped up session 1 of Makers Club with all students sharing where they think they will be 15 years from now. We watched the awesome video (Dr Fryer's favorite on YouTube) "What Most Schools Don't Teach." Students then worked on more Virtual Tour videos (now added to our main IES webpage with a ThinkLink map!), created Scratch programs, created Hopscotch programs, and created/built in MinecraftEDU.
March 11, 2015
About half of our Makers Club students continued working on our IES "Choose Your Own Adventure" (CYOA) Style YouTube Video Virtual Tour of our school! We recorded six more videos during Makers Club, and one 5th grade class recorded a Library tour on Thursday. All of these videos are now linked on this ThingLink map, which includes "hotspots" for each video. Navigate to the tour video you'd like to see, or just start from the beginning from the start of our virtual tour.
The other half of our Makers Club students continued building and working together in MinecraftEDU.
Students voted to have a "make up day" for Makers Club after Spring Break. Since Dr Fryer can't meet on that Wednesday, the make-up Maker's Club day will be Monday, March 23, 2015.
Session 2 of Maker's Club will start Wednesday, April 1st!
March 4, 2015
It was a snow/ice day today, so we did not meet. :-(
February 25, 2015
Today students got started creating a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style video virtual tour of our school which we'll be posting to YouTube. Today we videoed 6 different segments. We started storyboarding our video tour and students rehearsed the segments they volunteered to create, before recording them around the building. This is our current storyboard.
Here is the start of our virtual tour. At the end of each segment there are annotations, but only 5 segments are clickable at this point. We'll keep working on this next week and add more! All the videos we shot today are linked from this first one except Pod D. We'll link it next time!
Jennifer and Samantha created a narrated slideshow video with music using iMovie for iPad, and photos from Makers Club.
Other students played MinecraftEDU and explored other iPad apps including All-Star Guitar. Some students also worked on some green screen videos.
February 4, 2015
For our first Makers Club meeting of the semester, we shared an interesting fact about ourselves, turned in our club dues ($20), and then built an awesome 64 x 64 block castle in MinecraftEDU together! Check out these screenshots, these and a few more are also available in this Flickr set!
December 16-17, 2014
We had two meetings this week to make up for last week's postponed session. Here are some photos along with some of the videos students made and we watched/learned about together these last two meetings!
GamePress App for iPad (free)
December 2, 2014
We talked about some different things on our Christmas "wish lists" this year at the start of Maker's Club today. These included:
CD-R Electronics in Oklahoma City (good place to buy used iPads and other electronics)
The Notebook of Doom #1: Rise of the Balloon Goons (cool book)
AnkiDrive (racing game system controlled with smartphones or tablets)
ZoomerPup (robotic dog)
November 18, 2014
Students learned how to make "iMovie Trailer" videos using iMovie for iPad, and watched some of the "snow day" iMovie trailers Dr. Fryer has made the past few years. (Including a new one yesterday!) One of our student groups created their own iMovie Trailer, and used a few clips they recorded with our Green Screen Maker's Studio Station. They transferred the videos from 1 iPad to another using the InstaShare app. (free)
Some students built a wooden block maze and then had a race using Sphero robotic balls. We turned out the lights to make the video of the race more exciting! We combined both videos, added a copyright-friendly music track the students selected, and uploaded it to YouTube using the free YouTube Capture app.
November 11, 2014
Students learned how a Makey Makey with carrots can be used as a game controller. These are some of the web-based games they played. Students also participated in Maker's Studio stations.
November 4, 2014
We built penny bridges as part of the PBS Design Squad challenge! Check them all out in this Flickr album!
October 28, 2014
For our last meeting of "session 1" we are going to do some collaborative MinecraftEDU challenges. These are some we might try:
October 21, 2014
We raced Sphero robotic balls today, since we now have FOUR thanks to our generous Donor's Choose contributors!
Several students also created StopMotion Lego movies!
October 14, 2014
We learned how to use the Stopmotion Cafe iPad app (free) today! Here are LOTS of fun, example stopmotion videos!
Check out Kaylee's first lego stopmotion video! (Copyright-friendly music added with YouTube Capture for iPad)
Check out this FIRST video created with Disney Infinity: Action! (free)
September 23, 2014
In our 2nd week we started building a "Farmhouse Mansion" all together in MinecraftEDU. We brainstormed ideas for a collaborative build in Minecraft and voted. These were the results:
This is a short video with some of our students showing off and explaining what they built in our "Farmhouse Mansion."
September 16, 2014
We launched water bottle rockets on September 16, 2014, for our first fall meeting of session 1!
FALL 2014 Maker's Club Application Info:
Club information, meeting dates, and more is available in this Google Document. Note Maker's Club will be offered in two different six week sessions this fall, and the participation/materials fee is $20.
APPLY ONLINE: Submit this Google Form no later than midnight on Friday, September 12, 2014 to apply.
Selected students were notified on Monday, September 15, 2014 by letter and email.
Sibling discount: If siblings apply and are both accepted, only 1 participation fee is required.
Selection Criteria: The only requirement to apply to Maker's Club is that students be currently enrolled and attending at IES. Students do NOT have to currently be taking STEM in the semester they apply. The following criteria are used to select students for Maker's Club:
Gender balance: We try to accept a balanced number of boys and girls.
Student contribution: Ways the applying student identified which they could contribute to Maker's Club. (not financially - in other ways to make the experience fun and rewarding)
Parent perspective: Reasons identified by parents for why Maker's Club is a good fit for their child.
Spring 2014 Links:
Things we've done and are doing:
Quick Edit Video (Pick Up Procedures Video)
We also have a few things from Spring 2014 posted on our IES Makers Club blog.