After School Makerspace Program 2018-2019

This year, the Makerspace Mentors of Ashland High School ran 8 after school programs for local middle school students and elementary school students. These programs included, 3D design, 3D printing, woodworking, electronics, scratch, technology tear down, and flying objects. It was such a privilege to be able to serve as a mentor and get to know so many creative and fun kids in our district. Here are some highlights of the past year:

 The Mindess elementary school students started off the year with a 3D design course. Mentors helped students learn how to use various tools in our makerspace, the Ashland Innovation Center. These tools included the styrofoam cutter and the scroll saw. This allowed the kids to become more familiar with the space and learn how to safely use power tools.

The children made fantastic projects spanning everything from the kawaii cactus (left) to a soccer net. As a mentor, it was really cool to see the fantastic things that the students could come up with, and it was gratifying to see them learn how to turn their imagination into reality.




Another Mindess session was woodworking. Mentors taught the kids how to responsibly use saws, hammers, drills, and more to create beautiful wooden creations. The kids chose to make either wooden frames or wooden boxes. It truly was a test of patience and precision, but they all successfully completed their projects.Then, they went on to make their own projects with the skills that they learned.

The Middle schoolers really enjoyed our new technology tear down session. Mentors showed students how to take apart computers, keyboards, toys, and more. Then, they made their own creations from salvaged parts.

This session encouraged students to pursue their curiosity and learn what's inside of everyday objects. They learned how to be not afraid to break things and to recycle electronic components.

Many thanks to all who donated tech to be taken apart, and we are always looking for donations!

To end the year for the Mindess kids, we ran a flying objects program. Students had the opportunity to make their own rockets, catapults, and miniature ziplines. They also got to play with wooden catapults that the high schoolers made and they got to fly drones.

We started by teaching the kids to make soda straw rockets to introduce them to the principles of flying objects. Then we moved to catapults to teach them about projectiles, and finished off the rocketry segment by making air pressure rockets.

Having the kids fly drones was quite a risk, but it was worth it as the kids and the mentors had so much fun.


Next year, we will continue to run programs and will introduce new sessions as well. Until then, have an awesome summer vacation!

Ashland High School's Girls Who Code Club

Girls Who Code is a national movement that includes over 90,000 girls across the country. It's goal is to promote a safe and supportive environment where girls can learn how to code. Each chapter chooses a Community Impact project and creates projects that bring attention to that cause. This year, our chapter here at Ashland High School decided to bring attention to the cause "Save the Whales"

Getting Started

At the start of the year, we decided to code with the purpose of "saving the whales." Personally, I feel that having this cause in mind motivates me to learn how to code. It definitely seems more purposeful.

In order to fund our club for the year, we pitched our ideas for this year to the Bose STEM Seed Fund. After meeting with them, they generously gave us a grant to support our coding for this year. Thank you, Bose!

Progress 

So far this year, we have been working on a main website where we can show all our mini projects and going through the coding tutorials that GWC provides in order to learn how to code. Right now we are trying to make a quiz game to test people whale knowledge and provide them with surprising statistics. We are also trying to make a game to show how pollution affects the whale population. We would like to present accurate statistics and facts for our website, so we have also been extensively researching whale facts. 

Goals

We look forward to completing these goals by the end of the year:

1. Complete and publish the central website.
2. Complete our mini projects, including a quiz and a game.
3. Find a specific non-profit to support

We are very excited to continue our GWC journey and are thankful to Girls Who Code for giving us this opportunity. 

Reflections on Being a Makerspace Mentor

It's hard to believe that the 2017-2018 school year is coming to a close! This year, I had the privilege of serving as a Makerspace Mentor at the Ashland Innovation Center. I've learned a lot from the programs ranging from 3D Design to Robotics.

As a mentor, I am involved in planning the curriculum for each session. In the beginning of the year, I was really nervous. I would meticulously plan out each day, only to have the plans ruined by either moving too fast or too slow. So from working with the
kids this year, I learned that I don't have to plan each day down to the minute, and a loose plan of each day is best. However, it's also important to have extra activities planned in case some finish early.

Another lesson I learned is that we learn best by doing. Especially after school, elementary school aged children don't want to sit through another lesson or powerpoint. By giving the kids more time to explore, I noticed that the kids were more interested and seemed to learn more. For me, this meant taking a step back and not flying to the rescue to solve every little problem.

This year, I worked with an awesome group of kids and a fantastic group of fellow mentors. It's been really fun this year and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again in the fall. Have an awesome summer!

PS: Check out the Ashland Innovation Center's new website!

3D Printing with Mindess

Almost every week at the Ashland Innovation Center, high school students serve as "Makerspace Mentors" and help Middle School and Mindess (grades 3-5) students learn about STEM. The most recent session of the AIC Mindess program was 3D Printing. It's been really fun and a great experience for everyone involved.

Soldering Iron: What is it and how does it work?

All About the Soldering Iron

              A soldering iron is a hand tool used in soldering. It supplies heat to melt solder so that it can flow into the joint between two work pieces. A soldering iron is composed of a heated metal tip and an insulated handle. The soldering iron here at the MakerSpace is typically used for fusing wires together with solder, and can really come in handy with circuitry.