This page presents ideas for projects that you might integrate into your courses that could work at home, on campus, or both. Since we're not sure what opportunities and challenges the fall may bring, the idea here is to focus on flexibility. I can help you design the project, then I can do all of the instruction of the making aspect while you focus on course content. Let's collaborate!
Embroidery
Meaningful connections across the curriculum find a place in embroidery projects large and small. Portable materials and abundant online tutorials make this an easy project to do at school and / or at home.
Science, fitness, and history come to mind as topics to illustrate
Depict a figure from history, like Rosa Parks here, or from literature
Students can show a significant structure from history, language, or literature
Circuits
Simple materials like copper tape, LED stickers, LED lights, and household items can illuminate any subject!
Use LED stickers to make a circuit and light up a person from history, literature
Build "scrappy circuits" from household materials, then incorporate into a project
Light up a concept from science, history, language, math, and more
Adventures in Cardboard
Students can engage with course content while stretching their engingeering, art, and spatial reasoning capacities.
Weaving
Students can use color and pattern in both symbolic and representaional ways.
Color, pattern, and texture can tell a story
Tools made in the Bourn Idea Lab
There are many possibilities with textiles
CAD
Students can let their spatial reasoning blossom as they design in 3D. They can collaborate online or work solo, and either way we have a collection of short tutorial videos to support them.
Make a character's room, a person's office, or a creature's habitat
Use design thinking to make functional parts or tools
Design or recreate a building or structure
Share in AR
Students with access to an iPad can easily share their creations via a video they narrate touring a design viewed in augmented reality. Easy but powerful!
Custom Games
MakeCode is a free coding environment in which students can modify existing video games or create new ones. There are many help resources to guide, and sharing and teamwork is easy. Let's figure out how to create a game challenge based on your course's content.
MakeCode lets students modify an existing game or create one from scratch
Students can work together and use help resources to make a game based on course content
The built-in simulator means anyone can play the game on any computer