The Geometric adventures of the Axis Family
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I am on the board of directors for the Edina Center for Academic Excellence (ECAE) http://www.ecae.net
I am planning to teach a Sketchup course to kids this summer. Here is a promotional video I made for the course.
[flash=425,344:9wfaaliv]http://www.youtube.com/v/KFtEvMMscx0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:9wfaaliv]
The first piano piece is a composition by my son Max age 9 called "The Tragedy" that's him playing and the second is a composition by my daughter Abby age 7 called "Mermaids Castle" and she is playing it. many of the models in the animation were downloaded from Google 3d Warehouse.
If any of you have taught kids before and have any suggestions I'm all ears.
Any general discussion about the video or about teaching Sketchup are welcome as well.
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Bonnie Roskes at http://www.3dvinci.net/ has lots of resources for teaching kids that you should take a look at.
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Thanks John I've looked at Bonnies website and it is inspirational. I plan to buy some of her books to review between now and the time class starts. I'm also interested in personal experiences with teaching kids. IE: what to expect. Should I expect to review material several times or will these kids just soak it up and want more. The class will be for 2 hours on each of 5 Saturdays which is only 10 hours of "class time" is it reasonable to expect them to be able to design and build a home for their robot family. The design program will be fairly basic they need a way to get in and out of the home they need windows and they will need a recharging station for each of the robots. The robots will need periodic maintenance so they will need a maintenance station as well. I will leave the rest up to the kids and let them think up the design of their house and help them with the "functional" methods to achieve their desired outcomes. I have never taught kids in a classroom setting before so I'm not sure what to expect.
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Neat!
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A small, but perhaps important point, but shouldn't beginning be spelt 'beginning' rather than 'begining', or is the latter the American way? Sorry for being so pedantic. Nice presentation!
Regards,
Bob -
Be sure to include resource materials. Pictures of futuristic or fantasy homes and buildings, robot and space stuff, some ideas of what to put in the houses. As an architect, all you need is a blank piece of paper and you're off. Although I think most kids quickly grasp the idea of designing a house, some may need more than a program to get the idea of where to begin and possibilities. Others might be happy just to be able to make something in SU that has been shown to them, and might even be daunted by the creative side at first.
Sweet video and talented kids. Good luck with this.
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@watkins said:
A small, but perhaps important point, but shouldn't beginning be spelt 'beginning' rather than 'begining', or is the latter the American way? Sorry for being so pedantic. Nice presentation!
Regards,
BobYes you have found out why I draw pictures for a living....my spelling is horrible...but one has to just plow ahead and realize that our shortcomings should not be allowed to prevent us from making progress.
Of course there will always be polite people like you present to point out those shortcomings, hehe...
At least I was not the person responsible for spelling out "pubic school" instead of "public school" which did happen at an office I worked for...so even for terrible spellers like me there is always someone else that is worse!
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@pbacot said:
Be sure to include resource materials. Pictures of futuristic or fantasy homes and buildings, robot and space stuff, some ideas of what to put in the houses. As an architect, all you need is a blank piece of paper and you're off. Although I think most kids quickly grasp the idea of designing a house, some may need more than a program to get the idea of where to begin and possibilities. Others might be happy just to be able to make something in SU that has been shown to them, and might even be daunted by the creative side at first.
Sweet video and talented kids. Good luck with this.
Thanks Yes I plan to prepare a packet of information to give to the kids prior to the start of class. I will also be designing the home on the "0" lot for the Axis Family numbered "000" so the kids can see how I tackle the task as well.
I plan to show them images of Greebles, and Fractals, and space ship hulls, and to discuss fabrication so that they can think about materials with thickness and weight and how to build the structure and fastening methods etc.
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Dear Phil,
I have my problems with spelling too, which are exacerbated by the new communication technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter. I often look at a written word (usually on line) and wonder," is that correct?", and I have to resort to a dictionary to satisfy myself that it is indeed correct, or not.
My comment was meant to be helpful, and polite, as children are quick to spot such mistakes, which can be a distraction.
This discussion remind me of the great Dan Quayle blunder
Good luck with the project. Anything that can get children's imagination fired up has got to be good.
With all best wishes,
BobPS My wife is even more pedantic, and I often get in the neck over grammar.
PPS Being paranoid, I have re-red this mesage several times to make sure that their are no speling mistakes.
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Watkins
Trust me you were not the first to point out a mis-spelling of mine and you won't be the last. It's part of my DNA I've accepted it and learned to just go with the flow when it happens. I do appreciate you catching it so at least now I have a heads up for the first student to catch it. I'll give that student a free download of a plug-in or something to reward them for it.
Maybe someday correct spelling will be superfluous since all communication will be done telepathically.
Wait though the root of the incorrect spelling is in my brain so maybe I won't be given telepathic privileges....hmm I'll be relegated to the archives as a defective model.
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You could use a YouTube annotation to replace the misspelling if you wanted to: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92710 Annotations do look a little cheesy though...might be better off leaving it like you planned.
Nice video, BTW!
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Thanks Marcus I see that your location is Minnesota is that correct? Where in MN do you live?
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