Tuesday, June 30, 2015

TinkerCAD - Day 3

Today was the 3rd day of TinkerCAD.  At this point the students are TinkerCAD pros, so class was very quiet as they set about their work.  Thursday will be the last day, so it's coming down to the wire for them to finish their masterpieces in time to have them 3D printed on our Makerbot Replicator at the end of the session.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

TinkerCAD - Day 2

Today was our second day of TinkerCAD.  We learned the basics of how TinkerCAD works in our first class on Tuesday and now it's time for the students to be set loose and show us what they can do!

Half the battle was just figuring out what to design!  We've got 2 more days to figure it out and fine tune our designs!





Tuesday, June 23, 2015

TinkerCad - Day 1

Today was the first day of PNG's 4-part Tinkercad class.  We got started running everyone through the basic tutorials of how to use Tinkercad and getting them all familiar with the interface and how 3D design works.

In the next class each student will figure out what object they want to design in 3D and then spend the remaining classes making it as awesome as possible!

I can't wait to see what they do!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

BristleBots!

Today we assembled BristleBots!  Bristlebots are cool like "robots" that work using a simple battery and motor to skate around a flat surface on their own!

Thanks again to our friends over at EvilMadScientist.com for the instructions and inspiration!


Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Hour of Code

Today we did our (now monthly) Hour of Code.  We had a great turnout with almost a full house which is awesome because we are going to try to turn this monthly Hour of Code activity into something more!  This is a good place to start to get kids interested in coding and also working together to share their knowledge of coding.

Right off the bat we've got kids who have never coded and others who are pretty well-versed, so we want to get them working together and create a fun atmosphere where they can look forward to getting further into coding!

Coming up soon we'll have some robotics classes that will build on what we are learning here!

For today's activity, though, we started at the beginning with Code.org's Hour of Code activities.  These simple "games" involving Angry Birds and Plants Vs. Zombies characters are not only fun, but they also teach the basics of how to code using a visual block style.



Thursday, June 4, 2015

Photoshop - Day 2

Today was our second and final day of Photoshop!  The kids picked it up super fast and made some pretty excellent!

We learned how to take a photo, import the photo onto the computer, then bring the photos into Photoshop.  In Photoshop, we learned how to remove, isolate, scale and copy elements into a composite photograph.


Check out the results!





Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Photoshop and Photography - Day 1

Today was our first day of Photoshop and Photography for Summer 2015!

We had a lot of fun today learning how to use old digital cameras and taking silly photos.  Then we kicked it up a level and used Adobe Photoshop Elements to edit the photos and do all kinds of crazy things to them!