Category Archives: m@k3r

Makers Create Inventions At Home

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Mr. Louie’s Grade 7 students have been busy making various functional projects. They have been working with: Rube Goldberg Machines, LED Circuit Cards, and Cardboard Hats.

A Rube Goldberg Machine is something intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way. Among other tasks, students developed elaborate ways to turn off lights using dominoes, weights, and rolling balls.

Students used LED Circuit Cards designed to light up photos of loved ones with the push of a button.

Students also creatively designed Cardboard Hats painted to express artistic whimsy and individuality.

Hamlin Makes Face Shields For Local Health Personnel

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Hamlin has connected with other Bay Area Makers to 3D print PPE (protective personal equipment) Face Shield visors for our local health personnel working on the frontlines fighting COVID-19. They need as many shields as possible and we have risen to the challenge! One Hamlin parent, (Alex Belenson P ’23) even started a gofundme campaign and raised enough funds to purchase additional 3D printers to ramp up production and enough PLA filament to print the visors 24/7 for months to come. We are currently able to produce 9 visors a day.

Amanda Sammann, a trauma surgeon at UCSF/SF General and Director of the Better Lab, has approved the PPE Face Shield known as the Budmen design and is accepting them.

We are obviously not capable of sterile manufacturing but we do our best to ensure we don’t spread anything by removing the model from the 3D printer while wearing gloves and a mask and inserting the printed model into a plastic bag.

The first batch of 50 completed face shields was delivered last week to UCSF/SFGeneral emergency room. Special thanks to Diego Fonstad, Founder of Lectrify.it for connecting Hamlin to this meaningful project.

-Guest blog by Brian Louie (Hamlin Design and Maker Teacher)

More about our Maker Program at Hamlin:

The Hamlin School Maker Program is designed to deliver moments of impact where girls engage in real world problem solving through Human Centered Design Thinking. Students become problem seekers, focusing on community empathy and collaboration, using ongoing client feedback to drive the direction of their projects. Through their Maker work, our girls work diligently with tools, while developing a new lens by which to see possibility, adaptation, and innovation.

Making A Skateboard

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Grade 8 students have the opportunity to take a Maker elective class. This class is hands-on, dynamic, and fun. Students are able to use an assortment of materials to design and construct various creations.

Lexie made a skateboard for her project. She has been skating since she was 4 and has gone to skateboarding camps. Lexie has done ramp and street skating, but now mostly uses her boards to cruise around. She loved making the skateboard, but said that the hardest part was screwing in the trucks so that the wheels were perfectly aligned.

To learn more about our Maker Program, please visit

https://www.hamlin.org/program/technology-and-innovation/maker-program

 

Mentoring and Making: Grades 8 and 3 Work Together

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For a 3rd year in a row, our Grade 3 students are busy constructing their very own ukuleles. This project has become a class favorite, as girls are guided through the process with Mr. Louie, our dynamic Maker Teacher. This year, Grade 8 students regularly work with our Grade 3 girls, helping with the ukulele construction and strengthening sisterhood along the way.

Our students are doing the following to make the ukuleles:

-Use a band saw to cut wood (plywood for the bodies, oak for the sides and neck, walnut for the bridge)

-Cut the wood for the body

-Paint the body

-Cut the neck

-Sand the edges

-Glue on the neck, drill holes for pegs, nails for frets

-Attach strings to tuners

Later in the school year, Grade 3 students will have the opportunity to perform with these self-created instruments.

Immersive Technology Exploration: Grade 5 Maker Night

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Each year, we host a Making/Tinkering event for all Grade 5 students and their families. Last night, students completed Catalyst challenges, built circuits using littleBits, showcased their Scratch games with Makey Makeys, and programmed Sphero robots! The Grade 5 teachers and the tech team worked together to create a wonderful learning experience and an engaging community event for our Grade 5 families.

Grade 2 Creates a Living Wall

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When Ms. O’Brien moved into her new classroom, she looked out the window at the back of the climbing wall and the colorful mural and got inspiration for a living wall project. Ms. Ray had just returned from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she had visited an amazing living wall at a nonprofit called “Vertical Harvest” and she thought a living wall sounded like a wonderful science/maker collaboration.

Ms. O’Brien. Ms. Ray, and Mr. Louie met to put this idea into motion. Planning out the project provided several rich opportunities for problem solving, such as using measurement skills to see where the wall would fit, figuring out how to provide sunlight and water for the plants, and how to protect the wood finish from water damage.

First, the 2nd graders worked with Mr. Louie in small groups to laser cut their name and an image of a flower onto a wooden panel. Then, they used clamps for woodworking and special glue to construct their boxes. In science class, they planted succulents in pots and carefully arranged rocks and shells around them to create miniature gardens. Ms. Lovejoy and Ms. Davis donated the succulent plants.

Phase one of the project is located in classroom 2OA while the girls finish planting their succulents. Phase two will be located in the lower school entry foyer across from Ms. Yeung’s desk. For the final phase of the project, the living wall will be mounted behind the climbing wall outside. This project is a wonderful example of the collaborative spirit that organically surrounds us at Hamlin every day.

Building Ballet Barres in Kindergarten

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Earlier this week, Ms. O’Brien’s Kindergarten class followed a blueprint, took measurements, and built two ballet barres with the help of Mr. Louie.

Ms. O’Brien shares:

Our class chose dance as their focus for the class emergent study. This study is based on the girl’s questions, observations, and interests. When possible, dance is integrated into all units of study (math, reading, writing, investigations/social studies, and social and emotional learning). In a ‘persuasive writing’ activity, the girls wrote a letter to Mr. Louie requesting his assistance in engineering a ballet barre for our classroom so the girls had a proper space to “warm up.” Mr. Louie accepted and guided the girls throughout the design thinking project.

Below is a photo of the written request from the students to Mr. Louie:

More about our Maker Program:

The Hamlin School Maker Program is designed to deliver moments of impact where girls engage in real world problem solving through Human Centered Design Thinking. Students become problem seekers, focusing on community empathy and collaboration, using ongoing client feedback to drive the direction of their projects. Through their Maker work, our girls work diligently with tools, while developing a new lens by which to see possibility, adaptation, and innovation.

 

 

 

 

Design Thinking with Power Tools

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Grade 8 students in the Design Thinking elective recently ended their semester. They diligently created projects with an emphasis on human-centered design. Human-centered design comes from students working with a client (teacher) to solve a problem. To start the process students needed to first empathize and ask others what their problems were, rather than assuming a preconceived solution. One Hamlin student worked with Ms. Curran to solve the problem of floor space in our science rooms. Together, student and teacher came up with the need for vertical shelving to store laptops.

Creating iterations and prototypes, the student eventually finalized the product design with regular input from the client/teacher. Band, miter, and circular saws, and other tools, were used to make the computer cart (shown in the photo).

-My project was to build a computer cart for the science labs. I was able to work with wood while having fun with my friends. I really liked using power tools and I would definitely do another project like this again in the future.

 

Making A Ukulele

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Grade 3 students are making ukuleles with their own hands, hearts, and creativity. Like so much in life, this project began as an idea.

Hamlin music teacher Kate Roseman states:

The idea for the ukulele project came from a conversation I had with Mark Picketts last year. During that conversation, Mark mentioned that there was a project like this at another school, and I got really excited about the potential of bringing it to Hamlin. Originally, I was thinking about doing this project with Grade 4, but when I mentioned it to Brandy (Garcia), she immediately became excited and said we had to do it with Grade 3. Brandy’s enthusiasm and passion has really brought this project to life! Making connections to art and poetry was something I wasn’t even thinking about.

With the help of design and maker teacher, Brian Louie, the vision is now under construction.

Mr. Louie had never made a ukulele before, but he was able to watch Instructable videos about the process and was excited to model taking risks for our students. Mr. Louie knows how to play the ukulele, so he already had a feel for the instrument.

Our students are working through the following to construct the ukuleles:

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Grade 1 Community PBL Unit

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There is so much I love about this unit. It has happened each year I have been at Hamlin, but as it is exemplary student-centered learning in action – it’s as different every year as the students who make the learning happen.

This year Rachel Davis did an incredible job in documenting the work and reflections of the Grade 1 students and their teachers, enjoy –

Thanks to all the teachers that came together and designed this learning experience!