Inventor’s Bootcamp Road Trip Update
Table Top Inventing is on a huge adventure this summer with our coast to coast (almost) Inventor’s Bootcamp road trip! We’re taking 2 adults, 6 kids, some fantastic helpers, and our trusty “Maker Mobile” from California to North Carolina and back to bring Project 5S to a city near you! So far we’ve been in Hesperia CA, and Chattanooga, TN. This week’s bootcamp is in Atlanta, GA at The Children’s School. Next we’re headed to Murphy, NC (July 24-29). We’ll finish up the road trip in Thousand Oaks, CA (Aug. 19-22) at Lang Ranch Elementary School.
Hesperia, CA Inventor’s Bootcamp
At our first bootcamp in Hesperia CA, both teens and teachers got a hands on introduction to 3D printing, 3D design, artificial intelligence, and physical computing so they could become secret field agents and get to the task at hand. Their assignment? To develop top secret security systems to protect important nation assets! A.K.A. Project 5S! Teachers also participated in several focus sessions discussing how to bring these emerging technologies into their classroom and incorporate maker education into their curriculum. Student participants were saying things like “Bootcamp is better than Nerdcon!” and “I will starve for this project!” at lunch time. Now that’s dedication!
Chattanooga, TN Inventor’s Bootcamp
The Inventor’s Bootcamp in Chattanooga, TN last week rocked! Not only did participants enjoy getting creative with Project 5S, we had several special visitors! AJ (aka FoamBoardRC) stopped by to help the students with Arduino programming and talked about some of his favorite projects. You can check out AJ’s projects on his Instructables page at http://www.instructables.com/member/FoamboardRC/.
We also had a visit from Geoff Millener (@GMillener) and Lindsey Frost Cleary (@FrostCleary) from Mozilla Gigabit (@MozillaGigabit). Not only did they check out our bootcamp, they also agreed to hang out and judge the finial project competition! Mozilla (think Firefox) is leading the charge with innovative community education in Chattanooga and other cities. How cool!
During our Chattanooga stop, we hosted a dinner for a group of 20 high school principles to discuss the impact and implication of maker education in K12 schools. They enjoyed learning about the projects the bootcamp participants were working on and creating blinky light creatures of their own while earning their “I’m a Maker” badges. The group discussed the question “Can average teachers truly implement maker projects in meaningful ways that hit core standards and inspire genuine learning.” It was exciting to see a group of administrators so open to paradigm shifting ideas!
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