The WHY, HOW, WHERE and WHEN of HSMS Tigers ImagineNation Station |
Wish List Items! |
ImagineNation Station
The WHY, HOW, WHERE and WHEN of HSMS Tigers ImagineNation Station Bringing this Makerspace to South Middle School would not have happened without the coaching and support from +Laura Fleming who is a media specialist at New Milford High School. This idea of a Makerspace did not come from +Laura Fleming, but she has done it at all levels of education in some capacity and so we felt she was going to be our best sounding board of what works and what doesn't work. She gave up a lot of her own time to connect via twitter and google hangouts to help us through the entire process. First, we started out by looking at the "WHY" John Kolosowski says, "The library should be one of the most exciting places in the school: the hub of learning, reading, research, discussion and collaboration." We believed the hub of our school should be the library. We wanted to do something in our library that would draw the students into this space not only to check out books, but to be a place that they can create, research, and develop. +Laura Fleming told us from the start that we could do this on a low budget and truly we have done that. This entire project cost around $500. We started simple and will continue to add different things to our ImagineNation Station area for students to create, develop, and research. Next, let’s now look at the "HOW" We got a lot of our products from MakerShed, which was recommended to us from +Laura Fleming during our planning period. We started with the following five items to start our Makerspace: - Makey Makey Kits (2)- Little Bits (2 - Snap Circuits - Mindstorm Robots - donated to use from our Robotics Club - Take Apart station Finally, let’s now look at the "WHEN/WHERE" In our library we have an open corner that we have designated as our ImagineNation Station area. Students can only be in that area during the following times:
This space is not only for the times listed above, but classes can come into the Makerspace as well. Below you will see that a science class came in and learned about input/output while creating circuits with our Squishy Circuits. Every 3-4 weeks we will be updating and changing one station out and adding a new one. This will help keep the space fresh and the ideas flowing in our ImagineNation Station area at HSMSTigers. One way we are gathering interest is through teaser videos for the students to watch and see what new stations are coming to our space. We created a teaser video for the students to see prior to us rolling this entire space out. Each time a new station comes to our space we will make a short teaser that they can watch that will get them excited to come to our ImagineNation Station at HSMS Tigers. |
We would first like to thank everyone who participated in the Tastefully Simple Fundraiser. The proceeds from this will directly benefit the makerspace and allow for us to continue to bring great things to our school.
We have several other ways you can help give to this project. You can give directly to the PAWS group with direction that your gift is for the makerspace. or You can visit our Donor Choose Website at TIGERMAKERSPACE and give online to our project as well. Few items we are hoping to bring to our space! Legos (We would like a lego table to allow students to create and develop new things with legos) Little Bits Pro Library (This would give us all the little bits we would ever need) Snap Circuits (Getting a few more kits to allow more students to create projects using snap circuits) Squishy Circuits (These are wonderful input and output devices. Allow students to learn about how energy travels) Molecular Gastronomy Kits ( Check this video out at Molecular Videos) KNEX (This again is a building tool that our students can create unique projects and designs) Osmo (This would be a great tool to have in our space. Students could work on vocabulary words, and create objects) Motor Paper Airplane (Students would develop a paper airplane they then would hook that up to our motor system and try to fly it) Arduino Starter Kits (This would be for students that are really into circuits and creating game boards, and motorized projects) As we continue to develop this space more items will come to this place. Donations of any kind are always accepted. Just contact Travis Lape at [email protected] or Kristi Jones at [email protected] |
Tour of our space!
Makerspace Teaser Videos
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Makey MakeySee some of the projects you can do with our Makey Makey Kit or visit http://makeymakey.com/gallery
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Little BitsSee some of the projects you can do with your little bits. Visit http://littlebits.cc/projects
Frankenstein Project |