Design, Dream,

Discover

D-Lab is a creative lab workshop for Trinity students and faculty to design, dream, and discover. The space is outfitted to inspire maximum "thinking with our hands" and physical actualization of ideas, using a combination of digital and analog tools.

Design Thinking is at the core of all tinkering in our D-Lab workshops. It all starts with empathy. The iterative cycle of understanding a problem > ideation > prototyping > testing > feedback helps innovators imagine viable solutions to real-world problems.

In the Middle School, all 5th and 6th graders experience D-Lab as a quarterly Creative Arts class while 7th and 8th graders can choose to take "D-Lab" as an elective. All Middle School students are invited to open-format D-Lab "drop-ins" during lunch and activities periods. Robotics class, club, and team also meet in D-Lab.

Lower School D-Lab Jr., Blue House Hall

In the Lower School, students get exposure to basic fabrication and design-for-problem-solving skills at "Dive Into D-Lab" station rotations during select Extensions blocks as well as through after-school After the Bell options and Family Maker Nights.

Range of activities you will find in D-Labs:

  • exploring circuitry with Snap Circuits, Makey Makey, and Hummingbird microcontrollers

  • engineering moving contraptions with Lego Technics and K'NEX

  • building and programming robots with Lego WeDo 2.0 (Lower school) and Lego Mindstorms, VEX, Hummingbird and Microbit microcontrollers (Middle School)

  • producing stop motion or live action videos (with green screen, too!)

  • composing original soundtracks and recording sound effects

  • sewing and e-textiles

  • programming interactive screen experiences with Tynker and Swift Playground

  • making digital art with digital cameras, iPads, Photoshop, Sketchup...

  • building 3D models with Tynkercad, manually or using CodeBlocks, visualizing models in virtual reality with Merge Cubes

  • building prototypes from our extensive crafts and recycled materials