Hawken Efforts

Nick DiGiorgio, Director of makerspaces has been working with David Sylvan (UH Ventures) and Hawken Alumni Brian Rothstein of University Hospitals to produce face mask straps called ear-savers for the hospital staff. When caregivers are wearing masks all day they develop sores behind their ears. These 3D printed straps are used to hold the elastic away from the ears. After several iterations with Hawken 3D Printers, a new version has been accepted by the hospital team and they are looking forward to receiving many more of these to support their staff. 

If you have access to a 3D printer and would like to help, you can download the part file here and begin producing for the University Hospital team. For details and delivery, you can contact Nick DiGiorgio at ndigi@hawken.edu

Many middle school students have made and donated “no-sew” masks for their service days.

Our own talented Faculty have sewn over 400 masks at this point to share with family, faculty, grocery stores, service organizations and fire departments. This was also in collaboration with University Hospitals 10,000 mask making challenge. 

Lower School Art Teacher Michelle Mullins-Means created this step-by-step tutorial to guide younger students, or those without access to a sewing machine, in how to hand-sew a fabric mask. 

Hawken student Thomas Wong ('21) is using his own 3D printer to produce the Prusa Face Shield in connection with City Councilman Chris Glassburn and the Masks for Medics program, for distribution to area hospitals. Thomas is asking for support from the Hawken Community from anyone with a 3D printer. You would only need to print the headband and chin pieces as the film and elastic will be assembled elsewhere. If you would like to help, email Thomas directly.

Mr. DiGiorgio’s Design and Prototyping class took on the Hawken Maker Challenge and prototyped their own face mask or face shield. Check out their creative solutions in this Google Slideshow presentation. 

After Governor DeWine enacted an emergency order to move all learning to a remote format last March, our Makerspaces responded by creating this website to encourage continued design, creating, and making from home. Students received weekly maker challenges around themes like cardboard, nature, 3D design, music, and more. This site will continue to live on in the 20-21 school year as a resource for any student, anywhere, and will continue to include new challenges students can complete safely from home, as well as connect to maker enrichment opportunities. 

Director of the Innovation Lab, Anna Delia, developed a process and protocol for families to set up a creative, fun, and safe makerspace at home. Based around tools materials already accessible in your home, any age of maker can utilize these steps to build out their own creation station. This protocol was shared internationally at the Virtual MakerEd Unconference and to our NEOhio Maker Network at the Fab Play Maker Educator Summer Institute. If you are interested in seeing a copy of the presentation, please reach out to Anna. 

The Fab Play Maker Educator Institute is our annual network gathering of teachers, administrators, makers, and vendors. Created with the goal of building our network while fabricating together and learning from one another, we meet each summer at Hawken School. Due to COVID-19 and best practices for group gatherings, health, and safety of all, we knew we would not be able to meet in-person this summer. With the help of Hawken's technology department, we were able to move this entire conference online via Zoom, Mural, and our website, and provide access to this year's meeting completely free. 

In this new virtual format, we offered 15+ sessions, networking events, showcase shares, and unconference time for open collaboration. We were able to extend the gathering to teachers outside of Ohio, drawing in several participants from colleges and universities, and teachers from as far as California. Even in this unique year, conference attendance grew and we are hopeful we can see everyone back together in Cleveland, safely, next summer!

Anna Delia joined a team of nine Maker Educators and Consultants from around the country to initiate, plan, and lead two virtual "unconferences" to support Maker Educators everywhere. An unconference is a meeting space where some structure is provided, but attendees generally set the agenda and suggest discussion topics or sessions as the meeting moves along. Together, we created a two-day workshop in May to support challenges presented by COVID-19 to summer maker programs. We then led a three-day meeting at the end of June to discuss challenges and solutions for maker education programs as we looked to this fall and possible remote learning models. With several hundred maker colleagues in attendance from around the world, we were proud to share what we've tried and learn powerful advice from other vetted programs near and far. The June Unconference also included keynote addresses from Sylvia Martinez and Garey Stager, leaders in the field of Maker Education and founders of the annual Constructing Modern Knowledge workshop. 

During the June Unconference, Anna Delia presented "Setting Up For Making Safely At Home," a protocol we've developed to support families who would like to offer creative makerspaces for their children at home during this time. Garet Libbey, Associate Head of Hawken School, shared information she has gathered for a healthy re-start of schools on the Health & Wellness Panel. Yerko Sepulveda, Upper School Spanish instructor, joined the Social Justice Panel to share his research on inclusive teaching and programming in creative settings. 

Finally, we had several students from our Lower School join a student panel to share their experiences during the spring interim of remote learning. Many attendees reflected this was their favorite, and most valued, experience of the entire three days!

Archived notes from all the sessions are available at the Virtual MakerEd Unconference Website. 

Dr. Karaiskos and Mrs. Delia launched the "Hawken Kindness Project" this spring as a way to foster community connection and encourage our students to continue to look outward for ways we could support other people during this time. We are still taking submissions for anyone who has a photo of themself doing something kind for others, and are using these photos to collage a giant "kind" sign of our own to hang in the Lower School once it is full of photos. Please visit the Kindness Project webpage of this site for more details and to participate. 

Inspired by the Face Button Project at Vanderbilt University, all Lyndhurst campus faculty and staff will have the option to wear a "face button" to share their smile with students. Early research is showing this personal touchpoint is helping children feel connected to caregivers in pediatric wings of hospitals, while all interactions must be masked or shielded.

We have created 1 - 2 acryclic, wipeable, sterilizable restroom tags for each classroom and cohort in our classes K-8, which will be the grades where students will be leaving their rooms to use the restroom (Early Childhood students have restrooms contained in their classroom). 

With this new system, a student will take this tag when they leave a room to use the restroom. Outside the restroom, on the wall or door, there will be a set of command hooks (i.e. 3), denoting safe capacity of that restroom during COVID. The student will hang their tag outside the restroom to indicate they are in the space, and if another student arrives during that time, they can enter if the restroom is not at capacity or wait outside if it is. Following use, the student carries the tag back to their cohort room for sanitizing and for the next user to take with them.