Tacoma's Tinkertopia and Fabulous FabLab

Our creative juices start to flow at:

To kick off our study of inventions, the Navigators and the Spirits took the short trip around Commencement Bay to the unique and trendy downtown Tacoma district. Our first stop was Tinkertopia, "a destination for teachers, students, artists, crafters, inventors, makers, hackers and tinkerers (of any age) in search of unusual materials for any creative venture." That's us!!

First we get a bag. 

Then we go shopping.

A builder's heaven!

Bins and bins of good stuff to choose from

Hmmmm...what could I make of this?

So much to look at

They even have wire!

Our bags are full of treasures. 

We're ready to face the rain and trek on up the UW Tacoma's steps to FabLab!

"Do you need help with a product idea or invention? 

Visit FabLab Studio...."

We are introduced to the 3D printer and the amazing things it can do.

It can make 37 layer frogs,

little statues,

a wrench that was printed out in space for use on the International Space Station,

and working guitar parts.

This is a ball within a ball within a ball. 

We also learned about 3D printed prosthetic hands

that cost $45 instead of much, much more

and the world's first 3D-printed apartment building in China. 

Thank you, Tinkertopia and FabLab, for inspiring some future innovators and inventors.

We're so excited to get tinkering!

 We went back home with our treasures and started to dream and plan. 

A design for a new kind of fishing boat

Plans for a comfortable bed in the sun 

complete with drink holders and book shelves. 

Sign me up!

The North Skelton Saber Dance: ALL STARS!

For our recent Seabury Lower Campus Winter Performance, the Navigators and the Spirits presented the North Skelton Saber Dance. This is a video of our dress rehearsal earlier in the day. It shows the amount of instruction, communication, collaboration, struggles, practice and timing that went into it and, above all, the fun and thrill of working together towards a goal. I hope to later post the evening performance when each group had all its members and it all came together. It was very impressive and we were all so proud of our accomplishment! 

We were literally ALL STARS!

Dress rehearsal, up close and personal

 

Gutenberg's Great Invention

When Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press in 1445, he forever changed the lives of people in Europe and, eventually, all over the world. Being voracious readers, we are so glad!

Here we are discovering first hand what it is like to be able to make more than one print from one set of typeset. 

We then made individual block prints using foam board. It was tricky making mirror images of our names. 

We decided to put all our blocks together and make one big print. First we put them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then we experimented with how much "ink" to use and discovered that we had to work quickly to not have the paint dry. We tried again, this time with blue paint, and ended up with beautiful prints, enough for each of us to take one home. 

Medieval Odds and Ends

Here are a few more Medieval odds and ends we 

created, playacted, researched, reported and experienced. 

The Middle Ages have been such fun to learn about, 

integrated into every part of our day.  

Now we're ready to move on to the 

"re-birth" thinking, history, science, math, 

art, music, literature, food and everyday life 

of the Renaissance! 

Just when were the Middle Ages?

A watercolor castle

The King heralds a jousting tournament.

We created different styles of armor.

This helmet has an opening and closing mechanism. 

Each student made a life size coat of arms depicting something about themselves.

They are mounted on the walls of our entry hall of fame.  

This one has a shield, motto, helm and mantles.

This one has Pikachu supporters from the popular Pokémon trading card game. 

Instead of class rules, we came up with The Navigators Code of Honor. 

By following this code, we are becoming more and more chivalrous. 

We also studied the art of illuminated books. 

We each made a work of art of our names using illuminated letters. 

The Vikings of the early Middle Ages were the background theme in this artwork. 

Using this book as a guide, we made beautiful illuminated pages of a Middle Ages topic of interest. Notice the fancy borders with designs and stories, the illuminated first letter of the reports,

 the five W's answered in the reports and the glittering gold leaf accents. 

King Arthur

The Vikings

St. George and the Dragon

The Crusades