Monday 23 May 2016

123D Sculpt +

I have been looking for different ways in which students can be creative.  Something that might be an alternative to paper mache, cardboard and tape may be 123D Sculpt+ app.

After watching a very brief introduction of how to use this app, I can see some cool possibilities across our curriculum.  Re-creating a character from a book study using this app seems to allow students to use their own original creativity to bring this character to life. There are many figures to choose from as your starting point from spiders, planes, horses, human, elephants, and frogs etc., Using this app means that there is no waiting for paint to dry or having to access water and clean up.  On the down side you can't get your hands messy, however, there is no chance of getting paint or glue on your uniform.  This app enables students to create an avatar that is 3D and can build from any 2D version we have had in the past.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Plastimake

Today the year 9's had an opportunity to experiment with this component called "plastimake".  Once the plastic is heated in boiling water, it changes its colour from white to clear.  In this state, the plastic can be moulded into whatever shape you want.  The beauty of plastimake is that it can be reheated in hot water over and over again and can continue to be remoulded.  We experimented with cutting it with scissors and rolling it out on the table. We discovered that making a specific shape required patience and lots of reshaping along the way to arrive at the end product.

Softening the plastimake beads so that we can mould it


Saturday 7 May 2016

Year 13 Design Class

Recently, I had the wonderful chance to work with the year 13 design students.  Last term, Sarah Coursey started this class off with an introductory course on papertronics.  The girls revisited their understanding of basic electrical circuits and created some simple switches and lighted circuits using paper as their base. 

Last week I followed up with some e-textiles.  The stick on LED lights from papertronics were replaced with light emitting diodes, the copper tape which conducts the electrical current was replaced with electronic thread and we used metal domes as our switch.  Both of these sessions have opened up the possibilities of adding some electronics into student design work.  Keen students may also want to extend on this, by adding light, touch, and sound sensors.  Further to this, are programmable sewable circuits such as the Gemma, and LilyPad.





RESOURCES:


Bridget McKendry Christchurch FabLab http://www.fablabchch.org.nz

Nice Gear https://nicegear.co.nz

Aliexpress http://www.aliexpress.com

Jaycar electronics http://www.jaycar.co.nz