FCS seniors Naomi, Catherine, and Georgia presented “Significant Objects” at World Maker Faire today. Their presentation offered snapshots of three projects that emerged from conversations in STEAM last spring. The unifying theme of these conversations invited each student to explore…
FCS seniors presenting at Maker Faire
It’s an exciting time for the makerspace! The 2015-2016 school year is off to an exciting start. Seniors Catherine Barbour, Naomi Detre, and Georgia Fossett are presenting with BC at World Maker Faire in NYC this weekend. Their talk will be…
Makerspace cookbook
You’re invited! Any time the door is open (note: link only works properly when you’re on campus), students, faculty, staff, parents, and alums are all welcome to come down to the makerspace to learn and work and celebrate our school…
Making metaphors
Twelve or thirteen years ago, as I sat in the Meeting Room as a student at Friends’ Central myself, Bill Kennedy stood up to share a message in Meeting for Worship. His message left an impression, and I can still…
Lessons from our first design challenge
Our first STEAM design challenge of the year was to: “Dress” the window areas in order to make people feel curious about & welcomed in the makerspace. It was a fun project, and the projects presented at yesterday’s show-and-tell were fantastic.…
Start with a trash can.
The City Avenue campus has opened a brand new makerspace this year. We are grateful to have a new place to call home (with supplies! and plenty of storage space for projects! and new tools!) and thrilled by the opportunities it…
A mini course with Little Baby’s
The design prompt: Help a one-of-a-kind ice cream company create one-of-a-kind wedding cakes out of ice cream. The innovators: 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students who signed up for the “Design, Make, and Market” three-day mini course before spring break.…
Valentine’s Day connections
A small group of tenth and eleventh grade students made a trip to the Lower School campus to work with Kim Parris’s third grade students today. The theme of our day: light-up, pop-up Valentine’s Day cards. The STEAM teachers started…
A make-tastic carnival
It finally arrived! After months of work, our 31 middle school students finally celebrated… With Caine’s Arcade and Makey Makeys as our inspiration, we transformed the empty classrooms in the basement of the middle school into a carnival made out…
The fail whale, reimagined
The goal: To encourage students to take intellectual risks; to live with the vulnerability of not knowing something in order to learn from the people around them. The reason: STEAM [read: life] is transformed when we come to appreciate the people around us and…