About the STAR WorkShop
Established in 2018, the South Bergen Jointure Commission combined its STAR (Students Transitioning to Adult Responsibilities) program with its STEAM program to formulate The WorkShop: a 21st century working environment designed to teach students modern workforce skills for post-secondary life while also providing educational services for teaching professionals and students throughout Bergen County.
We want our students to know what it’s like to be in charge of running a business, from communicating with customers to fulfilling workplace orders to maintaining inventory. The WorkShop was established to provide our students with the opportunity to learn these skills in-house with support staff helping when needed. Our all-Google system makes it easy for schools to contact our students with what they want, for our students to prepare the items, and then get those items ready for shipment or pick-up.
- Collaboration and teamwork: students will work together toward a common goal on large-sized projects.
- Leadership: Students who prove themselves will be given an increased leadership role, heading projects to practice managerial skills.
- Communication: Using effective written communication in email interactions via Gmail with professional educators outside the South Bergen Jointure Commission school district.
- Work Ethic: Students will learn the traits necessary for a positive work ethic, from completing the tasks assigned to them in a timely manner to working collaboratively with peers. They will be in charge of maintaining an organized and safe workplace environment, as well as contributing ideas on ways to improve or optimize WorkShop procedures.
- Specific Knowledge: Students will learn specific technology-related skills, like demonstrating knowledge of the printing process including customer service, scheduling, and quality control to deliver products that meet customer needs and expectations. They will learn inventory skills using various technology, from pen and paper to Google Sheets. They will also learn shipping skills, like processing and packaging orders accurately. They will learn how to troubleshoot errors when problems with technology occurs.
Order Forms
Looking to have something printed on our 3D Printers? Have a large poster you want to hang up in your classroom? Looking to borrow one of our kits? Click on the correct order form below, fill it out completely, and we'll get back to you within 48 hours.
The services of the STARs WorkShop are available to all South Bergen Jointure Commission staff and to our participating districts for classroom use.
Frequently Asked Questions
General
Can anyone use this service?
Great question! We make ourselves available to all South Bergen Jointure Commission classrooms, as well as any teachers belonging to our participating sending districts (Becton, Bogota, Carlstadt, East Rutherford, Garfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Little Ferry, Lodi, Lyndhurst, Moonachie, North Arlington, Rutherford, South Hackensack, and Wallington).
How often are we allowed to use the WorkShop?
We're here to work for you. Our services will be made available to you as often as you need them.
3D Printing
How do I design 3D objects?
To the right you'll find our YouTube Playlist for designing in Tinkercad. We'll continue to update and expand our favorite videos throughout the school year.
What if I want to 3D print something for personal use?
At this time, we ask that everything we print be used for you be for educational purposes.
Why did my 3D design not print correctly?
3D design involves learning, and seeing a fault 3D print is one of the most important steps that we'll never take away from the learning process. Whatever you send to us, we'll print, even if it doesn't appear just as you thought it would.
With that being said, there are a lot of things to take into account when you're designing in three dimensions, but the most important is understanding gravity. Think of 3D printers as fancy hot glue guns. You can adhere to a surface, then build layer upon layer. However, if there is no bottom layer for the filament to adhere to, then you get some serious droops and what looks like a bird's nest. There are a few ways to work around this: learn about overhangs and how to design with them in mind, and also understand that you can design and print in sections. Your 3D design doesn't have to be one whole piece, but instead can be a series of pieces to be assembled in the post-production phase.
Media Printing
What's the best way to make a poster?
Our most recommended method of designing a poster is using the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop or Illustrator). However, you can also design posters using free platforms like Google Slides. Look at our Resources Section to find out how to design posters in Google Slides. 24" or 36" wide is the optimal poster size for our HP z3200 printer and HP T2500 printer.
How should we send you our paper media files?
After designing your poster, save it as a PDF. This will make certain that nothing gets distorted and your selected fonts remain the same (a font not in our system could change to Comic Sans, which would be disastrous!). Also attaching a screenshot of how the poster looks on your computer will help us make sure we're printing exactly what you want.
Lending Library
Can we borrow more than 6 kits from the Lending Library?
We don't have an endless supply of kits, but we do want to share them with as many classes as we can. If they are available, additional kits can be borrowed. Please email us at workshop@njsbjc.org following the completion of filling out the lending library order form.
What kits do you have available in the Lending Library?
You can view our Lending Library Catalog to see what we have, or you can visit our "What's in stock at our Lending Library?" spreadsheet to see what's available.
Contact Us
Phone: 201-393-0475, ext 246
500 Route 17 South, Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604
