High Tech High

Everything Else
1

My wife was given the opportunity to pre-screen an Education Documentary on project based learning. The video was focused on High Tech High (where was this place when I was a kid!). At one point while she was watching the video, she called me over to see something. A group of kids in the school’s GritLab were working on their final project, much of which was laser cut. The video has not been made public, so I can’t share that here yet. I did however manage to find the specific project on GritLab’s website: http://gritlab.org/apocalypto-project-summary/

Here is a link to High Tech High: http://www.hightechhigh.org/

Here is a link to GritLab: http://gritlab.org/

Here is GritLab’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/sswaaleyhth/videos

Very cool stuff and worth some exploration!

817×611 105 KB

28 Likes
2

Great find and great share. Using a central gear to move all the others is pretty neat. Even without the added layer of social constructs, I can imagine a big board to illustrate the basic gear designs for converting rotational motion to other types.

6 Likes
3

That is honestly one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long, long time.

4 Likes
4

I just attended the California State Fair this past weekend and was absolutely blown away at what high schoolers had made and exhibited. It is great to see whole schools dedicated to having “kids” develop and demonstrate such great creativity & craftsmanship.

4 Likes
5

I’m a judge at the Connecticut Invention Convention - we had 1,200 school kids competing with inventions they came up with, built and then defended their idea and scientific process to a panel of judges. We sent 50 of them to the National Invention Convention in DC this year.

Absolutely amazing what they’re doing and it’s predominantly mechanical (e.g. physically built stuff) vs software which is not something I’d expect nowadays.

What really is encouraging is the participation and sponsorship of local and national companies in providing the venue, supplies, food/drink, swag bags, etc etc etc. Great way to give to the community and definitely going to pay off with increased numbers of STEM oriented kids to potentially come work for them.

7 Likes
6

Good teachers should be payed like good lawyers.

Great idea, took a chance on it, trusted their students and supported them.

They will all walk away with pride in their “box” built as a team, understand there are hard limitations going in (source gear speed and location) and understanding there are other teams outside their own box they have to comply with to accomplish greater things.

Genius.

2 Likes