Fab Lab for 5th & 6th grades

[Steve Savitz]

Good Morning,

I have been placed in charge of developing some type of fabrication lab for our 5th & 6th grade classes. The good news is that every student in the school will experience this lab. The challenging news is that they will only have 22 days to learn a piece of equipment(s) and complete a project in 5th grade and an additional 22 days in 6th grade. I do have money to spend :). Can anyone offer any advice on what projects may fit this mold?

Thanks

Steve Savitz

Steam Coordinator

Methacton School District

Norristown, PA 19403

[Adam Singer]

A cardboard robotics project might hit on many different learning pathways. Laser/or hand-cut figures, physical computing with servos, LEDs, and even sound. Could add a story-telling component to it.

  I personally ally am a fan of Birdbrain Technology’s micro:bit-based Hummingbird boards for this.

  In terms of your constraint of “learning a piece of equipment,” almost any piece of equipment or process can be scaffolded for allow for access balancing depth with time constraints.

Adam Singer (he/him)

Technology / Maker Educator

Maker Tech Lab

Davidson Middle School

Twitter: @DavidsonMakers

Instagram: DavidsonMakers

Pictures of our class projects on Flickr

Support our class projects on Donors Choose

On Jan 7, 2025, at 6:43 AM, Steve Savitz <ssa...@methacton.org> wrote:

Good Morning,

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[Paul Meinersmann]

So many questions!

• Do you have any equipment already?
• Do you have a physical space?
• What kind of technology (iPad/Chromebook, FabLab hardware, design software) do students currently have experience with?
• How much time will students have during those 22 days to work on this project?
• Can you or are you expected to tie it in with whatever else those kids might be learning?
• What might students do that would be relevant to their community?

I'm a huge fan of the laser cutter as a tool, but it is really about learning to use design software to create, much as it is for any tool.  And I think the importance of the design process can't be overstated, no matter what tool(s) you end up going with.

Thank you,

Paul

Paul Meinersmann Technology & Makerspace Director St. George Municipal School Unit 65 Main St, PO BOX 153 Tenants Harbor, ME 04860 mobile: 207-975-3043 school: 207-372-6312 Pronouns: he/him/his

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[Sandee Bisson]

Hello Steve and All!

I run a 5th/6th Digital Design elective. I have them for 12 classes and each class session is 65 minutes. In that time we do a laser-cut tessellated puzzle, a 3D printed maze, and a laser cut box. I 100% agree with Paul that the learning happens in the design process. We use Illustrator for our laser-cut design and Tinkercad for the 3D printers. Here's a link to the course I teach if anything here is helpful to you.

Best Wishes,

Sandee

Sandee Bisson Maker Educator and Lower School STEAM Curriculum Designer 415-294-4901 office pronouns: she, her, hers  (why is this important?)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/k-12-fablabs/CAH%3DiDiMYcXoXELDgqSAi-T7QKsaNoJq8c9yoOuOVpnrgLJZuSg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Brad Wright]

I've been teaching our 5th grade Design + Code + Make class for a few years and have developed a few units/projects involving cardboard construction, robotics (with Hummingbird Bits), 3D printing, video game design (MakeCode Arcade), and vector drawing/laser cutting. I'm happy to send you some plans if you want. Here's one project I presented at the Fall CUE Conference in case it's helpful:

https://www.bradleywwright.com/blog/2024/09/23/fall-cue-conference-2024/ 

I see each of my 5th grade sections about 23 times over the course of the school year and we finish 3 projects. Right now, I have them building a greenhouse which has been pretty fun. They love using the drills and drivers. 

Brad Wright

Westside Neighborhood School

Director of Technology & Multimedia Learning Center

bwr...@wns-la.org

[hele...@isomers.com]

Yup! Totally agree with Adam. I did a robot petting zoo using just microbits and servos with 5th and 6th. 8th was using the Hummingbird Bits so depending on the budget, robot projects would be a great maker activity and a great way to showcase creativity while learning new skills.

[Marci klein]

we have a design-a-zoo project that would be awesome for this - you can use 3duxdesign cardboard and connecting system, hummingbird for the robotics element, and even a 3d printer or laser cutter if you want to that element.. here is a link to the zoo challenge and a sample 2nd grade version. If you have no money, a  colleague of mine works at selfCAD and can help yoiu secure up to a $15,000  grant (and write it for free). The project would just need the CAD element but includes training. If interested,  reach out to me and i can connect you. (ma...@3duxdesign.com) 

https://www.3duxdesign.com/pages/zoo-challenge-for-download?_pos=2&_sid=11825b710&_ss=r

https://www.3duxdesign.com/pages/3duxuniversity_global_student_showcase_nanuet_ny?_pos=1&_sid=70d64fcd1&_ss=r