Notes from the Class XI Mandarin shadow puppet project at @BrearleyNYC. #STEAM #MakerEd

Yue Tang is one of my amazing colleagues at The Brearley School. After we installed a Glowforge lasercutter in the CoLaboratory, I approached her about doing a shadow puppet project with her Mandarin class. I’d watched puppet performances during some of my travels, and it seemed like it would be such a fun and creative project to put on a show at school. This year, we collaborated on shadow puppet shows in two different grade levels, Class VIII and Class IX!

Before embarking on the project, I showed Yue’s students examples of shadow play using the following two links:

1. Wikipedia Shadow play  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_play
2. Three little pigs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCmFWJjc4RA

Separately, I had seen an ad to attend a Crankie Theater show in Coney Island. I wasn’t able to make the show, but I followed links to learn more about crankie theaters and located building plans to construct my own crankie theater. I loosely followed the plans shared on this site: http://www.thecrankiefactory.com/348971243. I also gleaned information from this blog post: http://williamtherebel.blogspot.com/2015/01/thoughts-on-making-crankie-box.html (Note the image in the gallery above showing a quick semicircular 3D piece that I designed and printed on one of our Ultimaker printers to hold the two main dowels upright in the puppet frame.)

Here is a snippet of the Class IX play: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fVEMs-ZR4UQwzQ2xwRcw0srMk6W80dUW/view?usp=share_link

Here is a snipped from the Class VIII project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jGsC9-tolFgJgyko23VlKmaBZRz4uj02/view?usp=sharing

Pics from Day 1 of #Construct3D and @DukeU’s @InnovionCoLab Studio. #MakerEd #STEMed #STEAM

I’m at Duke University for the inaugural Construct3D conference sponsored by Duke, Ultimaker, Autodesk, and ShopBot! Many thanks to co-organizer, Liz Arum, for encouraging me to attend. Below is the description from their website:

Construct3D 2017 is a national conference on digital fabrication focused on “3D printing” for higher education,  K-12, and community education. Join us as we explore ways to foster student engagement, support research, and improve understanding using 21st century technology.

Construct3D 2017 aims to bring together educators from a broad range of educational contexts to exchange ideas and innovation — to accelerate adoption and exploration of 3D printing. Construct3D offers educational pioneers opportunities to shape the implementation of 3D printing in education in years to come.

After a walk and a biscuits and gravy lunch with Ian Klapper of City and Country School, we made our way to Duke’s Technology Engagement Center for workshops and a tour of the Innovation Co-Lab Studio by its director, Chip Bobbert. Photos of the Co-Lab‘s awesome space for digital fabrication are posted below. Check out the mesmerizing wall of Ultimaker printers as well as laser cutters, CNC mills, 3D jet printers, a vending machine of engineering tools, and other tools that make me happy including a vinyl cutter and sewing machine.

 

 

Pics from the opening reception with a keynote from Dale Dougherty of Make Magazine and early glimpses of the vendor tables are below:

Some videos from educator projects highlighted at Ultimaker’s table are below:​

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Pics from my lunch and walk with Ian are below: