Tuesday, May 30, 2017

MAKE Your Summer Awesome

Upcoming PNG programs for Teens (6th grade & up) and MidKids (4th-6th grade). Sign up at the beginning of each month.


PNG TEENS 6th & Up Tuesdays & Thursdays from 4pm - 5pm


June


TinkerCAD 3D Printing & Design (4-part) 6/6 - 6/15

Learn to use the computer to create 3D models and then print them out on the Makerbot Replicator!  This class will teach you the basics of 3D design and how to use Tinkercad.com to create 3D objects that can be printed on any 3D printer.

TensegrityStructure Robot (2 part) 6/27 - 6/29


Create an tensegrity structure in the shape of an icosahedron out of rubberbands and straws and then hook your creation up to a motor and power to see it move!  Add some markers and you've got a scribblebot!

July


Maker Skills: Soldering (6 parts) 7/11 - 7/27


Join this Project Next Generation class if you want to learn how to solder!  We've got cool electronics kits that light up, drive and scurry.  When you're finished you can take your creation home with you and you'll be an expert in circuitry and soldering!

August


Video Game Development (4 part) 8/1 - 8/10

Try your hand at making a simple video game using Flowlab!

Hour of Code Thursdays from 2pm - 3pm

Not only is coding massively important to the fabric of our digital world, but it can also be pretty fun!  Sign up for this quick introduction to activities on Code.org and play fun games while learning the fundamentals of basic coding then try your hand on some of our programmable robots!

June

July


August




PNG MIDKIDS 4th & Up Tuesdays & Thursdays from 2pm - 3pm


June


MixcraftMusic Making (2 classes) - 6/6 - 6/8

Learn how to use the digital audio creation software Mixcraft and make your own song!

Father'sDay Card (2 classes) - 6/13 - 6/15

Make an awesome card for Dad this Father's Day using your own creativity and our Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine.

Papercraft& Photography (4 classes) 6/20 - 6/29


Create a unique papercraft figure, print it, assemble it, photograph it and then Photoshop it!

July


BookPage Art (2 part) 7/11 - 7/13

Create an awesome piece of art out of our old discarded book pages using our Silhouette Cameo vinyl cutter.

Photoshop PosterDesign (4 part) 7/18 - 7/27


Learn how to use Adobe Photoshop to create and print and poster of your very own design.

August



Use coding techniques you've picked up from our Hour of Code sessions to program our cute Ozobot robots to run an obstacle course (no previous coding experience necessary)!

PaperArt (2 part) 8/8 - 8/10


Use our Silhouette Cameo vinyl cutter to cut a design out of paper and then add some creative folding techniques to bring it to life!

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Stop Motion Animation (MidKids)

Today was the last day of school here in Elmwood Park so we had a more empty and laid-back class than usual. We took another million photos depicting awesome battle scenes between characters we had lying around like Batman or some Legos. We then scrapped together those photos to make some interesting short films

Movie Maker Skills: Stop Motion - Day 2

We wrapped up out stop motion films today! We got creative with the editing and the results turned out great. Check them out!

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Stop Motion Animation (MidKids)

Today we were introduced to the world of stop motion animation! Movies like Chicaken Run or The Lego Movie use this technique to create a unique film style that we will be attempting to recreate. We scavenged through boxes of toys and Legos to find inspiration for our short film and took a million photos.

On Thursday, we will put all the photos together!

Movie Maker Skills: Stop Motion

We only had one person show up, so we left it up to him to do whatever he wanted. He decided to go back and finish up an old project from a previous stop-motion animation session. Now, going through the project a second time, we were able to add some awesome details and the project is in really good shape!

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Secret Code Jewelry - Day 2 (MidKids)

Now that we know what coding, both cipher and script, we can use it to write secret messages! We used the substitution code we learned about yesterday to write our own secret messages and put them on a necklace or bracelet. Each combination of colors represented a letter

Movie Maker Skills: Editing (Day 4)

Our editors were hard at work finishing up our films on the last day. They walked right in and headed straight to work. We wouldn't dare interrupt them while they were so concentrated so there's no telling what they did, but the results turned out really well!  

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Secret Code Jewelry - Day 1 (MidKids)

PNG and the Kids & Teens department are teaming up for a 2 part series on cipher coding! We got everyone familiar with what cipher coding is and how it related to the coding PNG is familiar with. After the quick intro, we had the opportunity to crack some codes of our own and do some script coding on Hourofcode.org.

On Thursday, we will create our own cipher codes and make jewelry with a secret message on it using it!

Movie Maker Skills: Editing (Day 3)

The editing continued today as we start to wrap up the process. The hard work has already been done. We were now free to tinker with some elements of Adobe Premier that we have never used before. We implemented cool effects like clip reversing to really make our projects unique.

We have one day left to edit our masterpieces so stay tuned to how how the projects turn out!

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Mother's Day Cards (Day 2)

The design portion of class is over now we need to run our cardstock through the vinyl cutter and then remove excess paper, fold and put on the finishing touches!




Movie Maker Skills: Editing (Day 2)

We learned the basics of what it takes to construct a good scene in editing last time, so this time it's just continuing to get down to work on constructing our perfect versions of the footage provided free from Framelines.tv.


Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Mother's Day Cards - Day 1 (MidKids)

There's no better way to show your mom appreciation like making her your very own custom Mother's Day card! Using our vinyl cutter, we started cutting out card stock designs with our own personal messages to all our mothers. We ran into some trouble, but we're hoping to get it all fixed by Thursday!

Movie Maker Skills: Editing - Day 1

Today was one of our new movie making classes that, instead of embracing the whole movie making process, lets us really perfect our editing skills.

 We downloaded raw stock movie footage and used that to edit, skipping the filming process entirely. This footage, being as complex as it was, allows more advanced editing techniques like multiple camera angles

We stated strong today and will continue our editing Thursday!

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Solder Make-Up Day 2!

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!!

Today we had another round of soldering just to see if we could finish the projects we started... AND WE DID!  Congrats to Rana for sticking with it, not giving up and getting her radio to work!

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Hour of Code (MidKids)

Today, we decided to switch things up and have some fun with the old Kano kits. We haven't used them in a while so we figured we might as well! Everyone had a ball coding and messing around with games like Minecraft and Snake.

We like to have these sessions every month so be on the look out!

Soldering Make-up

We blew the dust off of our old soldering kit and gave it another crack after a failed attempt the first time around. We struggled at first and went through the tedious process of troubleshooting, looking for pieces that were installed the wrong way and faulty soldering points. After a whole lot of struggling, we got them to work! This is a PNG first, so great job everyone!