Tag Archives: Tracy Rudzitis

February 27, 2022 · 12:42 pm

Gathering my notes and tweets from yesterday’s mycelium workshop at @GenspaceNYC (organized by @STEMteachersNYC)… #STEMintheCITY #scichat #STEMed

Yesterday, I met up with Tracy Rudzitis and Don Buckley for a workshop at Genspace in South Brooklyn. Here’s some info about Genspace copied from their website:

Genspace is the world’s first community biology lab — a place where people of all backgrounds can learn, create, and grow with the life sciences.

Since 2009, we have served the greater New York area by providing hands-on STEAM education programs for youth and adults, cultural and outreach events for the public, and a membership program to support New York’s community of creatives, researchers, and entrepreneurs. Our programs demystify scientific processes, provide a platform for innovation, and cultivate the next generation of life sciences leaders in emerging global technologies, such as biotechnology, neuroscience, epidemiology, genomics, and many more.

The mycelium workshop yesterday was organized by STEMteachersNYC as part of their annual STEM in the City initiative. Here’s some info copied from STEMteacherNYC’s website’s About section:

STEMteachersNYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting a community of STEM teachers across the NYC region. Our mission is to cultivate excellence in STEM teaching and to promote deep understanding and success for students through innovative, teacher-led professional development. Our weekend workshops are offered during the school year and multi-week workshop intensives occur in the summer, led by master teachers. We welcome and encourage teachers from across the globe, the US, and the local New York City area!

** Here is more info about the STEM in the City initiative and some upcoming opportunities: https://stemteachersnyc.org/category/stem-in-the-city/

I am totally grateful that STEMteachersNYC organized yesterday’s site visit! Tracy and I are self-proclaimed PD addicts, and while we have participated in many online offerings over the past two years, we much prefer being in-person, exploring together, and continuing the conversation at a local watering hole. When we entered Genspace’s lab, we were able to examine a bunch of materials and projects laid out for us. Don and I particularly loved the examples of leaves imprinted with artwork to highlight the process of photosynthesis(!!). I always appreciate an opportunity to explore a lab/makerspace to see how supplies and works in progress are organized — and I’m now considering ways to hack my tables to include storage below. Also on display at Genspace was the OpenTrons Project robot liquid dropper that began as an independent exploration in the lab but is now commercially available!

Mycelium is a biodegradable fungal material, and during a brief presentation before the hands-on portion of the workshop, we talked about how mycelium is used to create shipping packaging (in lieu of plastic or styrofoam), faux leather, building material, art objects, and more. I know many maker friends who have been integrating mycelium into STEM and STEAM projects (Corinne Takara, Erik Nauman, Chris Sweeney, Tracy Rudzitis…), but I have never experimented with the mushroom spores, and I’m excited to start! Tracy brought some 3D-printed plastic molds designed by her students in Tinkercad to fill with the mycelium mixture; She was inspired by Corinne Takara who has experimented with biomaterials for years and espouses growing materials rather than simply purchasing or consuming non-biodegradable materials. You can read more about some of Corrine’s work in this post: https://grow.bio/blogs/grow-bio-blog/giy-maker-spotlght-corinne-takara

Here is a tutorial for getting started (thanks for the link, Tracy!): https://grow.bio

Here are some tweets posted during yesterday’s workshop:

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November 13, 2017 · 3:18 pm

Thanks to @Dfenjves, I can finally finish the @p5xjs code for #SingingFaces shared by @sofisagarcia_! #CCfestNYC #STEAM #ArtEdTech

Yesterday was another incarnation of CC Fest in New York City hosted at NYU ITP, and I’m proud to have attended all of their NYC-based events. It’s such an awesome, friendly, and welcoming way to delve into p5.js for both novices and advanced coders. [Per the p5.js website: p5.js is a JavaScript library that starts with the original goal of Processing to make coding accessible for artists, designers, educators, and beginners.] CC Fest has recently launched in Los Angeles and may branch out to other cities. My friend Saber Khan (@ed_saber) is a founder and organizer of CC Fest and an incredible thinker, thought leader, and educator. On their website, CC Fest describes itself as:

A Celebration of Creative Coding for Teachers and Students
CC Fest is an opportunity for students and teachers to engage in creative coding. Come spend a day making interactive and engaging digital art with the p5.js library. Teachers will work on bringing p5.js projects to their classes. Students will learn the basics of p5.js and build their creative coding portfolios. Read about the first CC Fest at NYU ITP in October 2016. We hosted a second CC Fest at NYU MAGNET in Brooklyn in April 2017. And a third at UCLA in September 2017. Checkout the tweets at #ccfestnyc and #ccfestla.

After a keynote from Cassie Tarakajian (@hellothisiscass), there were two sessions of learning opportunities led by educators, designers, tinkerers, programmers, artists, and other awesome volunteers. For my first session, I joined Danny Fenjves to learn about integrating microphones to alter shapes (Danny is the founder of Upperline Code.) In this workshop, I finally learned the shockingly simple code necessary for making mouths open/close along with music, thus solving a mystery that has been troubling me since March! I loved the wonderful compilation of Singing Faces (see video at the top of this post) shared by Sofia Isabel Garcia at a previous #CCfestNYC in March of 2017. These animations were created by girls in Grades 4-12 taught by Sofia as part of Code/Art in Miami. I never understood how to get the mouth shapes to dilate and contract along to the music, and I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even try to locate a solution on my own. Thank you, Danny! Here are Danny’s shared links:
1. Starter code: https://glitch.com/edit/#!/p5-sound-base
2. Finished code: https://glictch.com/edit/#!/95-sound-1-solved
3. And here’s the code I wrote that helped me dilate an ellipse based on mic.Level:

var mic;

function setup() {
createCanvas(800, 600);
mic = new p5.AudioIn()
mic.start()}

function draw() {
var micLevel = mic.getLevel() * 400
console.log(micLevel)
background(20, 30, 150);
noStroke();
fill(255);
ellipse(width/2, height/2, micLevel, micLevel);
fill (0,255,0);
ellipse(100, 200, 40, 40);
fill(255, 0, 0);
ellipse(micLevel, 300, 75, 75);
}

For the second session, I attended Serena Parr’s introduction to creating a Photobooth with p5.js using video capture from your camera’s webcam. It was awesome and made even more fun since I sat with three amazing ladies who inspire me daily with their ideas, insights, prototypes, and creative solutions: Maureen Reilly (@MaureenrReilly, Erin Riley (@eeriley99), and Tracy Rudzitis (@wagongrrl)! Serena’s super fun session helped me feel so much more comfortable about exploring Processing and p5.js libraries for more filters. Here are Serena’s shared links:
1. Serena’s presentation: bit.ly/photoboothsITP
2. Serena’s button photobooth program: bit.ly/buttonBoothITP
3. Serena’s emoji photobooth code: bit.ly/emojiBoothITP
4. Here’s Erik Nauman’s code for a Photobooth! Thanks, @openblackboard: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IMQ38H3Y5GQJF6rGVfSItE7dXezlrzEWBYASeOXPTI/edit
5. And here’s my code for the project:

var capture;
var button;

function setup(){
createCanvas(320, 240);
capture = createCapture(VIDEO);
capture.size(320, 240);
button = createButton(‘Say Cheese’);
button.mousePressed(takePic)
capture.hide();
}

function takePic(){
image(capture, 0, 0, 320, 240);
// filter(‘INVERT’);
}

function draw(){
// background(255);
}

I had to leave after the second session and missed out on the sharing at the end of the day and the closing keynote by Todd Anderson (@toddwords).Here are some of my tweets from the day (I was too busy learning and shmoozing to share more):

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November 13, 2017 · 9:56 am

Thanks to @wagongrrl @openblackboard @gravescolleen @morrill_rob (and others!) for sharing 3D designs for coin cell battery holders! #MakerEd #STEAM #STEMed

Thanks to the generous makers below for designing and sharing these helpful 3D templates that hold a coin cell battery in place while allowing wires, conductive thread, and/or copper tape to conduct electricity:

From Tracy Rudzitis (@wagongrrl)
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/i7EUf0qO18W

From Erik Nauman (@openblackboard)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2663569

From Colleen Graves (@gravescolleen)
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/dU4kTogxpjZ

From Rob Morrill (@morrill_rob)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1888289

From Benny Malengier
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:250503
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:265116
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:79502

From Andrew Comer
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:653945

From Beam Contrechoc (@contrechoc)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1627205

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September 25, 2017 · 12:35 pm

Yes, I actually spent time gathering my tweets from @MakerFaire NYC weekend. #MFNY17 #MakerEd

Since I can’t get Storify to embed properly into a WordPress.com site, and I still do not self-host a WordPress.org site, I am gathering below my tweets from the last few days at Maker Faire NYC and some Maker Faire meetups.

Thursday, September 21

I went to the Maker Faire NY “Real World 3D Printing” Panel at Fat Cat Fab Lab hosted by Matterhackers and Ultimaker. It was great to reunite with other independent school technologists and fellow Ultimaker Pioneers, Ian Klapper (@ian32one), Rurik Nackerud (@okay2fail), and Sarah Rolle (@artdabbler13). I’m ever grateful to Liz Arum (@lizarum), the fabulous Education Community Strategist at Ultimaker North America), for suggesting I join the Pioneers, sending me updates about awesome meetups and conferences, and encouraging me to submit a 3D project for the inaugural Design Challenge Starter Pack. I love that my 3D Mandarin Seals project is immortalized in print among other inspiring projects from educators and artists! Here are some of  my posts from the evening:

#NYCIST friends at this @MatterHackers @Ultimaker Pre-@MakerFaire 3D-Mixer. #MakerEd

A post shared by Karen (@karenblumberg) on

Friday, September 22

I attended the 3rd (and my 3rd) annual Make: Education Forum at the NY Hall of Science where I reunited with teacher friends from the NYC Department of Education, technologists from other independent schools in New York and around the country, and exhibitors I met previously at previous Maker Faires or conferences. At the forum, Dale Dougherty, CEO and Founder of Make, exuded inspiration, genuine excitement, and kindness as he launched the day, introduced each speaker, and moderated the Q&As. Here is the schedule of speakers from the day. As per previous years, Dale offered attendees a backstage tour of the Maker Faire after the forum. Below is the description from the website — it’s a great event to attend if you can swing it!

Co-hosted with our partner, New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), the event is Friday, September 22, at the New York Hall of Science, home of World Maker Faire New York, from 10am to 4pm. This year, our focus will be on computational making, rethinking professional development for maker education and how making is not just about creating a makerspace but creating a maker culture.

Hear from educators, makerspace organizers, librarians, local and federal state department representatives, and youth organizations who have developed models and platforms to serve this agenda. If you are an individual who is either formally or informally supporting and/or creating project-based learning programs for kids that support general STEM areas, as educational policy makers, superintendents and principals, or youth programing coordinators, please join us.

Here are the tweets I shared during the day:

After the Make: Education Forum, I made it to a Maker Educator Meetup  hosted/sponsored by Maker Promise, Autodesk, and MackinMaker at NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Makerspace. Here a tweet with photographic evidence via Mara Hitner (@3DPrintGirl):

Sunday, September 24

I made it to another Maker Faire NYC! Every year, I try to organize a block of tickets (through the Technology Department budget) for colleagues to visit the Maker Faire on Sunday, as there is a reduced Sunday group rate of 4 tickets for a total of $100. I also recommended people use their personal Professional Development monies if they want to get their own ticket to attend on Saturday. Additionally, I suggest they volunteer and attend for free (!) via the Make Faire Traveler Program. Here are my tweets from Sunday’s Maker Faire:

PS. I want to keep track of these tweets from others as well:

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