CREATE Lab

The Hear Me display at Square Café has evoked over 60 unique responses from community members since we installed it in May.  

The display features rotating stories from a group of passionate students who are committed to improving their education through the F.U.S.E. program, which was started by a Wilkinsburg high school teacher to give students additional learning opportunities outside the classroom. 

F.U.S.E. worked with Hear Me to record the students’ stories and partnered us with Square Café, a local restaurant who is committed to serving the community. The powerful stories and the display have become a topic of discussion in the café.

It currently features a story form Ashley, a 17-year-old Wilkinsburg High School Student, and asks the question: “How can we help students and administrators better understand each other?” 

Safety at Wilkinsburg High School  By Ashley, 17

Community responses to Ashley's story:

 

 

We update the story and the question every 2 months.  

Previous stories include Sophia's, accompanied by the same question:

(“How can we help students and administrators better understand each other?”)

My neighborhood  By Sophia , 16

Community responses:

 

and Tatiyana's, along with the question "Who is responsible for the learning environment in schools?" 

My School  By Tatiyana , 17

Community Responses:

  

To stay up-to-date with Hear Me displays and community responses, follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HearMeProject.

For more information or to learn how you can host a display, please email Hoffman.ryan8@gmail.com.

 

Ryan Hoffman Project Coordinator, Hear Me 

Come program Finch robots and Hummingbird kit creations at this weeks
mini maker faire at the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh. We will have
four laptops set up to allow kids and adults of all ages to try out
these robots with some no-experience-necessary programming
environments.

More at: http://pghmakerfaire.com/2012/09/13/meet-the-makers-robots-monsters/

Hope to see you there!
Tom

This Saturday 22 September from 10:00-2:00, children from Pittsburgh Allegheny who have been working with the Children's Innovation Project, will be sharing ideas at the Mini Maker Faire.

Children will be showcasing one of the Core Concepts of the project: Learning as Material.

Children will show how to create electrical circuits using Circuit Blocks, talk about their learning and show how they understand electronic toys.

http://pghmakerfaire.com/2012/09/18/meet-the-makers-electronics/

http://triblive.com/aande/moreaande/2488608-74/says-pittsburgh-faire-maker-event-jordan-makers-phillip-ages-mini#axzz26pKJBXKL

> What: Informal open house
> When: Thursday, July 19, 6-7 PM
> Where: The Electric Garage, 4621 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15243
> Who: Open to the public
> Why: To see the new Ford plug-in hybrid vehicles

This week we are privileged to be hosting Chris Lear, Senior Development Engineer in Ford's Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle group, along with a team of engineers and five plug-in hybrid vehicles (four Ford C-Max Energi PHEVs and one Fusion Energi PHEV, see photo). The team has driven from Michigan for evaluation testing, taking advantage of Pittsburgh's hilly terrain, and the availability of level 2 charging at the Electric Garage. If you'd like to talk to the Ford engineers and see the latest plug-in hybrid vehicles from Ford, please attend an informal gathering Thursday evening 6-7PM at the Electric Garage.

Hope to see you then!

Ben

H. Ben Brown
Project Scientist
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

The June Harless Center held a weeklong summer camp June 4^th -7^th, 2012 for children entering 2nd-5th grade on Marshall University's campus.  Allen Perry, a Physics and Chemistry teacher from South Point High School (Ohio), lead the camp with the Harless staff assisting.  Allen participated in the roll out which involved 4 local schools this past school year. Children gained inspiration for their designs from a virtual tour on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s website and used the engineering design process to create their robots with the goal being to learn how to create and program a robot.

ASK:          

• What do you want your robot to look like?
• What do you want your robot to be able to do?

 IMAGINE:   

• Research
• Brainstorm ideas
• Choose the best one!

 PLAN:        

• Draw a diagram
• Make a list of materials you will need 

CREATE:   

• Follow your plan and create it!
• Test it out!

IMPROVE:  

• Talk about what works, what doesn’t, and what could  work better!     
• Modify your design to make it better
• Test it out! 

On Thursday, a showcase of the student’s work was held and parents, friends and family were invited to attend.  Some of the robot designs included an alligator, truck, Sacajawea, wooly mammoth, and recycle bots. The children enjoyed the experience and the parents were impressed with the designs that their children made and the creativity that was used

 

Kyempapu is a grassroots non-profit organization that is committed to community development, environmental management, and poverty alleviation in Kirinda, Uganda and its surrounding communities. Kyempapu was founded in 2009 and works out of Kirinda, Kitanda sub-county, about 140 kilometers from Kampala. 

Kyempapu would like to welcome volunteers from all over the world.

Accommodation is free and you can apply here www.kyempapu.wordpress.com 
We work with schools, communities ,youth groups and women in the fields
of education, sports, health and social work so whoever is interested
should contact us.
Below are some of the pictures of our students.
Kindly contact me in case this information is not enough to bring it out clearly.

Kind regards,

Sylvia Namukasa
Director
KYEMPAPU
www.kyempapu.wordpress.com

Sylvia was introduced to CREATE lab through one of our gigapan Dialogues teacherAlejandra Lorenzo-Chang, International Program Coordinator at the Waldorf School of Baltimore. Sylvia and her team is working to implement gigapan in the Uganda area and asked us to post this information to our blog. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me Clara Phillips clara@cmu.edu or Sylvia Namukasa:sylviabofry@gmail.com

Mathias demonstrating  the Gigapan to some KYEMPAPU volunteers.

 

 

Taiji and Sage installing the first WaterBot.

Hello CMU Create Lab! I was involved in the installation of WaterBots in Frick Park, and was asked by Jessica Pachuta to write an entry for the blog. I hope this is okay!

On Saturday March 24^th, after being delayed by torrential downpour and flood warnings, we were finally able to install the final 5 WaterBots in the 9-mile run watershed. Jessica from CMU’s CREATE lab, Taiji from PPC, and myself (Sage, a high school student externing at PPC) spent the entire afternoon setting up the bots. The adventure took 5 hours of tromping through the creek in (leaky) waders, countless zip-ties, and a pit stop at McDonalds, but the weather was great and we all enjoyed being outside!

I’m a senior at the Ellis School, and this year I had the opportunity to have an externship with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. This spring, in addition to being a crew leader at several of the PPC’s volunteer work days, I am going to collect data and monitor the WaterBots. So far, there have been some technological issues which hopefully have already been solved! A far more concerning issue is the missing WaterBot. WaterBot 0009 has mysteriously disappeared, though fortunately all the others are exactly how we left them. Hopefully a reason other than theft will present itself, but considering how well it was anchored down, other explanations seem unlikely. But despite this dilemma, I'm very excited to get to work with the CREATE Lab's WaterBots this spring!

 

-Sage Lincoln

Hear Me connected USA Network producers with Clairton City School District through Hear Me 101 in advance of the filming. Common themes among the students are a desire to raise their community up, become role models and to be seen and heard as positive people.  Hines Ward and students at Clairton High School involved in Hear Me 101 will be featured in “NFL Characters Unite,” a documentary that premieres tonight at 7 p.m. on the USA Network.
 
Watch the trailer!

 

The Homewood Children’s Village and PNCIS have been using the gigapan
to document the surroundings of Helen Faison Primary School.
Yesterday during The Homewood Children’s Village official public launch, community members
and students saw a large gigapan print and were able to annotate ideas and thoughts direct into the large canvas.