On November 16th, elementary and middle school students of The New Century School took a field trip to a very special spot in Baltimore City. Digital Harbor Tech Center is a self-described “youth makerspace providing youth with an opportunity to be creative and productive.”
Under the aegis of The Digital Harbor Foundation, the Tech Center opened in 2013, taking over a defunct recreation building on Light St. The next year, they “launched the Center of Excellence to train others how to incorporate making into their own learning environments.” Just 3 years after opening their doors, the Tech Center estimates that, “in 2016, [they] will reach 2000+ students in grades 1-12 from 90 Baltimore-area schools.” They operate on a “pay-what-you-can” basis to allow all interested kids to be able to participate as well as offering free field trips to learn about 3D printing, such as what TNCS students attended last week.
During their 3-hour session in the makerspace, they were first introduced to the Digital Harbor Foundation and the concept behind the Tech Center—and instructed to “look, listen, and learn.” There was definitely lots to look at and lots to learn! Next, for the bulk of the session, they learned and practiced the basics of 3D design, which they ultimately put to use in the execution of their very own custom 3D-printed keychains, the primary endpoint of the session.
To learn 3D design basics, they first discussed 2D design, which takes place on a grid composed of both an x and a y axis, and then added the “z axis” to bring in the third dimension. From there, it was onto a supercool free computer application called “Tinkercad,” which is exactly what it sounds like—tinkering with engineering! The program makes engineering and design accessible to anyone with three simple steps:
- Place: Shapes are basic building blocks of Tinkercad. A shape can add or remove material. Import your own, or work with existing shapes.
- Adjust: Move, rotate and adjust shapes freely in space. Use tools like the ruler to input exact dimensions.
- Combine: Group together a set of shapes to create models as detailed as you want.
TNCS students were asked to complete a set of five fun, interactive tutorials in Tinkercad, each building on the last in terms of skills acquired. When a task was successfully performed, a shower of confetti burst out of the completed design to let users know that module was complete, and they could move on to the next. Immersed was also up to the task, folks, as you can see in the slideshow below.
TNCS elementary students thoroughly enjoyed their time at the Tech Center and picked up new skills like the innate tinkerers they are. If the concept of “makerspace” is ringing a bell, that may be because last week’s post on the Ozone Snack Bar discussed how that newly opened space might evolve as a makerspace. STEM teacher Dan McGonigal said, “The Tech Center has been on our radar for a while now, and we’ve been wanting to explore 3D printing. Now that we have the 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade cohort, we can really do some cool things in engineering. The school founders are very supportive of this idea. We have even discussed the possibility of getting a 3D printer here, but with that being so cost-prohibitive, we wanted to introduce the students first and see how it goes—and it went very well.”
With the fourth quarter of the 2016–2017 school year slated for a Technology and Innovation Unit, expect to hear more about the makerspace idea. Mr. McGonigal hinted that recreating some Rube Goldberg machines might even be in the offing. Meanwhile, here are the fruits of TNCS students’ and other area students’ labor at Digital Harbor Tech Center.
