HS: Dressing Up Our Boxes

I hope that some of the information about the typical types of sawing wood stuck with you. As a reminder, here are some great pictures of what we talked about.

As we begin to protect our birdhouses with paint, please remember what we talked about when applying a finish to wood. Sand the wood, and then choose the right treatment. For aesthetics in wood, the most likely choice is some type of stain, shellac, dye, etc. that would bring out the wood grain. But these types of treatment go into the grain of the wood and don't necessarrily protect the surface. For that on this project, we'll use primer and paint!

HS: Kennel Building Away!

The progress y'all are making is great! It is great that the balance your keeping between research, practice, and patience. As you make plans for your second trip to the kennel please consider any questions you need to ask to get clarification.

Keep practicing your patience and working on your SketchUp skills!

MS: SketchBook Drawing

This week will continue to work with Autodesk SketchBook.

You will have new teams, and we will continue with the Composition Game. The more you share with your teammates the more you'll learn.

HS: Lap of Luxary

This week you will have all of the information you need to move forward. The process is the same for this part as the "sketches" you did last week.

So consider what worked for that and repeat it. Take what didn't work and discard it or rework it.

Don't forget to watch the videos for tools, as they will help you with your SketchUp model.

http://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos/60

HS: H4H Bluebird Boxes

As we've discovered, we should not put our boxes up in trees because, as
one article said, if we do we're making a lunchbox for critters who enjoy eggs.

Mrs. Webster said that her class would love to install the boxes with us. So we should start a dialogue with Mrs. Webster's class as to the where and the how. Maybe they can some of the research or make the stands or some such.

HS: Lap of Luxury Resources

This image is linked to project document.

Now that your teams are settled, and you have a clear goal it is time to get the brain going! Remember, before you start to design your space you should do a lot of research, which should include the following:

• the business to whom y'all will propose your ideas
• market needs--what do pet owners want?
• actual kennels and how they use the space
• the dimension of the actual space
• a budget.

I've found a guide that may be useful for your project, so feel free to use it to find information on pet hotels, like how to plan and run it. This may be useful in deciding where to put a pool or food bowl.

The image is a link to that guide.



There are many considerations that come into play when designing a kennel. While I don't think we need to do in detail all of them, I think that we must recognize them. You MUST go through this web page.
http://www.kenneldesign.com/products/blueprints/16kennels/index.php

Here is a link to a Pinterest page that I found. I spent way too much time on it, but it was so danged adorable I couldn't leave it! https://www.pinterest.com/explore/dog-kennel-designs/
Here is an image of some of my favorites on the page, and thank you to
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/pet-camper-straight-line-design for putting them out there.

HS 11: Lap of Luxury

This week we will set aside our family portraits to work with Dr. Bruce in creating a plan for the luxury suites. You must watch the four Getting Started videos linked here:


http://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos/58










And you will be responsible for three of the tool videos linked:

http://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos/60

HS 10: Hop for Hope

 Great job on the second table! The MSers are using fully the first one and are chomping at the bit to get on the second one.

As we move into the second 9 weeks you will focus your energy on creating a timeline and schedule for the what of your Hop for Hope project. You will start to reach out into our community to find a home for the jump. And you will contact artists and find the supplies needed to build a jump that you will design.

And we will continue to bond!

Homework: You will find plans for a bluebird house. You will modify that design to create original plans for your birdhouse. You will create a spreadsheet that documents your supplies, materials, and tools. You will also create a price sheet for the materials, including paint and furniture for your bluebird friends.

We will begin to explore paints, stains, shellacs and a variety of other wood treatments.

HS 10: Welcome Back!

We are going to continue to work on our family portrait projects. As is clear is class, everyone is at a different place in their design/build process. As we get back to it take some time to reflect on your idea. Remember, your first idea may not be your last or best!

Your blog post for the week:
You will make your normal blog post. That is, you will document in words and images what you accomplished for class this week.

You will also blog about the Sketchbook software we drew with at the beginning of the year. You will reflect on your experiences of drawing. You will also compare and contrast those experiences with drawing on paper.

Your Homework for the week:
You will go to this link and download the software for the drawing tablets.

http://www.wacom.com/en-us/support/product-support/drivers

Do this at home because our lead-lined walls at school don't allow for it.

You want the Mac version.

Open Studio Time!

Do you have an art project that you want to work on? Do you just want to hang out in school? On the
next three Wednesdays we will have OPEN STUDIO, where you can come in and work on any project that you want.

The middle schoolers will be working on their robotics projects.

There will be some kind of food.

Dates: Wednesday, September 23 and 30th and Wednesday October 7 we will meet from 4-7pm!

We're all goners!

We can't even run from them now!

HS 9: Automata Page

You are to use this web site as a kick-off point for the exploration of mechanical movements: http://www.cabaret.co.uk/.

For this week you will do your weekly blog concerning what you did in class this week. Remember, if you do not have images or did not make significant progress and want to blog about something else you may. For example, if you found some mechanical movements that you really like and want to incorporate into your piece you can show them. Or, you can post images of your favorite artist or artwork. Just post!

You will also make a new page that contains three artworks from the cabaret web site above. When you get to the site you can go straight to the artist link, but it would warm my little teacher heart if you spent some time going through the entire site.

Remember that everything that we are working on is in preparation for your family portrait.

MS 5: Scratchin' the Itch to Program!

Even after a couple of weeks of fun using them, this week we've abandoned the cups! In the end I was challenging the kids to make up their own programming games with the cups. They certainly rose to that challenge!

We've moved onto Scratch, which is a web-based, drag-and-drop programming language designed to teach kids programming. So far so good--another way to say it is that most kids love it!

For the next few weeks we will work on developing a strong practice of using Scratch. The final project will be a web based game of some sort, but that will be up to the kids to design as teams or individually!

HS 8: Finishing up

The kids are finishing up their paper models, and they are turning out great! It is really fun to watch them make these constructions because it is a challenge. It is clear to see which students are naturals and which will need more practice to be great--which they will!

All of this work is to prepare for the "Family Portrait" project, and we will keep laying the foundation for that.

Your assignment for the week is to keep on your blog and keep thinking about your upcoming portrait!

HS 7: Paper Models and Music

This week we will continue to work on the paper models started last week. This has been a challenge for a variety of reasons including having never done this before, junky instructions, and patience in reading thoroughly the junky instructions!

All of this is in preparation for the moving family portrait. Just as a reminder, each student will construct a piece of kinetic art whose theme will be "family," which does not mean blood relatives, although it may be that family.

This weeks blog assignment is to make the normal weekly blog, combine the two "Mechanisms" pages, and then create a new one that will contain this information:

1. A list of five songs that represent your chosen "family"
2. A brief but thorough description of why you chose that song
3. A link to an audio or video file that lives on the line
4. This "Parental Advisory" label by any music that is not school appropriate.

As you combine your mechanisms page consider how the mechanisms move and what they accomplish in the world. Does this have any relevance to the movements in your machine? Can  you even see the movements in your machine? Start to consider what you want to happen in your piece. For example, in "The Pier" I wanted my "mother" to catch fish, so I had to figure out how get the fishing pole to move. What action is going to take place in your piece. You don't have to be too specific, but you certainly can be!

MS 4: Cup Sequencing and Cooperation

We are still practicing programming without a computer. This week we will use specifically marked cups, and work as a group to get each cup to get each cup to its spot. Each child will be designated A through E, and the students will work as a group to get each cup to its proper place.

Some of the problems of computing that we will explore with this exercise is the idea of routing and deadlock. In today's day we have parallel computing and great means of creating networks, but efficiency and data flow are still important concerns.

On the second day of the exercise, the students will be introduced to more complicated problems based on the same exercise, which stretches their problem solving skills, ability to work in a group, and their concepts of sequencing and work-flow. For example they will have to solve the same problem without speaking and the configurations by which they will pass cups will change.

Next week we will begin to program using Scratch, which is "a visual programming language. It can be accessed as a free desktop and online multimedia authoring tool that can be used by students, scholars, teachers, and parents to easily create games and provide a stepping stone to the more advanced world of computer programming." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)]

MS 3: Limited Languages--Programming!

With our exercise in programming for cup stacking we learned that when programming we had to be very specific in our instructions because if someone with no experience programming our instructions had to rely only on what we wrote!

Computers are usually programmed using a “language,” which is a limited vocabulary of instructions that can be obeyed. One of the most frustrating things about programming is that computers always obey the instructions to the letter, even if they produce a crazy result. In this activity you will get some experience with this aspect of programming.

What we will do: A child be given an image. The child describes the picture for the class to reproduce. The children can ask questions to clarify the instructions. The object is to see how quickly and accurately the exercise can be completed. Then this is repeated, but no questions can be asked. Then this is repeated with a more complicated image, and the child turns her back! But it might be one of the teachers who does the telling!

HS 6: Paper That Moves!

This week we will start to build our mechanical marvels in paper. You will choose from several different mechanisms, with the idea that you will make a moving "family portrait."

We will also go back to the SketchBook software to practice our drawing in there. To help I will show you how to use the Intuos drawing tablets, which you are free to use at any time you are drawing or working on your computer.

REMEMBER! You must make a blog post every Friday that is a reflection of what you did during the week. I read those Saturday morning. Any addition work, like creating your "Mechanisms" page is different.

This week you will add another page. Again, it will be a collection of three mechanisms, any that you want. One of my favorite resources for mechanisms is here: http://507movements.com/ . Some are animated, and some are not. When I'm going through there I'm sometimes just looking at whether they are aesthetically pleasing to me--pretty!

You will choose three mechanisms and write at least a paragraph on what your chosen mechanisms do in the world. If you can find no information then you have to make up a paragraph's worth of information. Or even if you can find enough and just want to make up the information you may do so. You must have three images to back up your text.

You can name the page anything you want, but remember that we are building up to making a family portrait. This is due  August 21, 2015.

HS 5: New Blog Page, "Mechanisms"

You are to create a new page for your blog site that contains at least three mechanisms from the web site of paper engineer, Rob Ives, linked by this image.

You are to choose from the mechanisms found on the page linked here:

You are to select three of these and put them on your new page. You are to have images of the real world applications, as well as information about your choices. You must use sources in addition to this page. Remember to cite your work. This may be a web site, but use the system that you do in English class, MLA, Chicago, etc.

This project is due by August 14, 2015.

MS 2: Coding Without a Computer

In preparation for coding on the computer we've started coding without one. We used a specific set of instructions to move cups around into different configurations.

We've had one good day of working on this project, and the kids are making great progress. Some of the kids who have coding experience are creating their own language.

Above, we have an arrow symbol that somewhat resembles the rest of our vocab-
ulary, but we’ve also included a way to “pass” information about how many times
we want to apply the forward and backward arrows. In the computer science

world, that extra passed information is called a parameter. Parameters can further
customize an already helpful function.

HS 4: Paper Shapes!

Today we started to make shapes out of paper. We started with a simple cube, which turned out to be not so simple.

Glue edges! Remember those glue edges.

Then we moved onto a seven sided shape, and there were a few successes. We will continue to make shapes in preparation for some more sophisticated paper constructions involving mechanisms and movements.

HS 3: Make a Blog Site and Post

Using your CBA Gmail account, log into Blogspot and make a blog site.

Remember that this will be a school related site. You must use school appropriate language, although you certainly may write in the vernacular. Your post must have some text and a picture.

If you choose to do vlogs, you must still use Blogspot as your platform.

Your blogs will be due 6pm on Friday, regardless of whether we meet that day or not. The posts should relate to what you did in our class that week.

If you get stuck check out the information linked here: