2. Digital fabrication in education

This week I worked on making vinyl cut stickers for my classroom.

My Process

About 4 years ago, I left my school after 18 years. It was bittersweet. While I love my job and new lab, there are still things I miss dearly about my previous school and classroom. One of those very simple things was a design poster based on an image from Code.org. It was one of the very first “sticker posters” I ever made with a Roland Cutter. Here is the original image from Code.org:

Since I left that one on the wall, I decided to make another design poster based on our discussion this week about using design processees to help students work through their digfab projects.

Reflection

I am happy that Fab Learning Academy gave me a reason to go back and add some flair to the wall in the design side of our Fab Lab. Asking students to go through an iterative process is not very easy - they tend to want to stick to their initial idea. I like that I’ll have a simple graphic to refer to when I am trying to explain that the design process is not linear.

A project I have done with students incorporating the vinyl cutter was a 2nd Grade Design Challenge with the Geography Standard “Research US Symbols and Landmarks”. Instructions: After choosing a US symbol, research when it was made, where it is located, and the significance of the symbol. Design and cut a vinyl sticker of the symbol to add to the 2nd Grade Class map. Each group member will keep enlarged stickers of the symbol to commemorate their assigned region.