| Semester
1: Art - Physics - Engineering - Senior Project |
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It
all began when...
an engineer, artist and a physicist walked into a Senior
Project . . . a semester early and made plans.
David Berggren - Engineer
Jeff Robin MFA - Artist
Andrew Gloag - PHd in Physics |
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Followed
by a trip to...
San Francisco’s Exploratorium
to see how they display their physics and mathematics exhibits.
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The
intense research continued...
at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. We felt that it
was important to see how art is curated as well. At this
point we realized that we wanted to show physics concepts
as art and explain the physics that exists within art. |
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Following
our trip...
we looked at David Macaulay's
The Way Things Work for inspiration and to get an idea
of how to approach the students with our plan to artfully
show physics and vise versa. |
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Next,
we discovered a real-life artist...
when we looked at the work of Christo. He made Collage
Views, Plan Views, Drawings and Proof Models to describe his
work and also to get funding for his projects. We thought
we could use these ideas to help students to plan their projects.
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The
creation phase began...
over the summer when we came up with a sculpture, created
it and then looked for the physics that could be applied to
this work. We executed this project to see how it would turn
out and to also see where the pitfalls lay. The proof model
did not work, so we used it as an example of what not to do.
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The
students put their artistic ability to use...
in their art class where teams of two students made visuals
and mathematical descriptions about how something works. This
first project was meant to focus the students' minds around
the concept that they are either making art about Physics
and Engineering or using physics and engineering to make Art.
It could have been as simple as a table and its base
or as complicated as a rocket in space. The
point was that the student started to think about how to clearly
communicate an idea on paper and have it look good.
They received help from Andrew and David with the
physics and engineering aspects.
Click here to see students' work |
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In
physics and engineering class...
students used principles that are routinely employed in the
design and building of sculptures and other art work.
In doing this project the students had a chance to see, first
hand, how these engineering and physics principles applied
to the art work of their choice. Furthermore, this project
helped to open minds to the connection between art, physics
and engineering.
Click here to see students' work |
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To
receive inspiration...
the students took a field trip to the Reuben H. Fleet
Science center. At the center, students had the opportunity
to look at various physics displays and to view ideas to eventually
create their own. |
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The
students received their assignment...
to create a display focusing on the physics behind art OR
the art behind physics. In addition to the display, students
had to create a project proposal, plan view, collage view,
proof model, detailed drawings, a promotional poster, and
compile a physics explanation. |
Project
Proposal...
Included an introduction that explains
what the project is all about. Then the students explained
what the teaching goals were. After all it is school and we
wanted others to learn something from these projects. Students
compiled a materials list to help them see how complicated
their work was going to be. Finally students created a project
timeline. |
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Plan
View...
Students had to create
a vision of their completed project including physics and
engineering concepts. |
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Collage
View...
Next, students were asked to imagine what their completed
project would look like and put it on paper.
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Proof
Model...
Students then had to create a working, smaller
scale version of their project. |
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Detailed
Drawings...
Students then used CAD in David's class
to create detailed drawings of their completed work. |
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Physics
Explanation...
Following completion of the project
each team was asked to create a poster for their project that
explained the physics behind their project. |
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Promotional
Poster...
Students also had to create a poster
advertising their project to entice students and parents to
come see what their project was all about. |
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Finished
Products...
These are the finished products that are displayed around
High Tech High. Some projects were already broken and some
even broke on their own before exhibition night. This is
one of the factors that led us to change the project for
the second semmester. Curating these varied projects was
quite difficult as well. |
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| Semester
2: Rework Scope and Assignments |
At the end of the first semester we all felt that
we needed to set parameters with the students on the scope
of the projects, mostly because the cost and the size of the
work the students made in the first semester was huge.
Also curating the work was difficult. There were lots of holes
in the walls and the kids at the school were breaking the
projects faster than we could fix them.
We really wanted all the students to know about each others
work, but they had to work until the bitter end and did not
get a chance to learn from each other.
We decided to use the school’s interior window boxes
as a constraint and for display. The 24 x 24 x 5 inch windows
were perfect for: Analog Flash for Windows. Analog: because
most of the projects are mechanical. Flash: references the
program for interactivity. For Windows: not for PC but the
actual windows at High Tech High.
We also built in a time line that the students had to follow,
2 weeks of development, 7 weeks of building, 3 weeks of study
(each others work) and a final exam. We also had weekly check-ins
with points attached so the students knew we were serious
about their progress.
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To
receive inspiration for our new students...
the students took a field trip
to the Reuben H. Fleet Science center. At the center, students
had the opportunity to look at various physics displays and
to view ideas to eventually create their own. |
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We
also showed . . .
a slide show of interactive science
experiments and kinetic art. We told the students their work
must teach an idea to the viewer and be interactive. The work
also had to be bulletproof, because the freshmen were very
hard on the other projects and we did not want these to be
destroyed also. |
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Pullies
by. . .
Jeff Robin
AndrewGloag
David Bergren
The three teachers made this box to illustrate mechanical
advantage. We used this to set the bar.
Click here to see physics
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Timelines
and Check-ins
We used an online calendar and weekly check-ins to make sure
that no one was falling behind. We were very controlling because
we wanted all of the groups finished by the deadline.
Click
Here to see calendar
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| Analog
Flash for Windows "The Boxes" |
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| Books
We had the students make books about
all the projects including their own. They needed to have
an image and explanation of the physics and math that went
into each box. They had three weeks to put the book together,
and some students created incredible work.
Click to see some pages |
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Test
The students all had to take this
test that had the math and physics that was represented
in their projects. They were allowed to use the books that
they made for help and the test was one fourth of their
final grade.
Click
to see the Test |
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| Teacher
Reflections |
| Jeff
Robin |
This
year was important, successful and pushed me further than I have
ever been from my teaching comfort zone. It was important because
the students, teachers, and community fell in love with the results.
I was impressed with the end results because the kids were able
to produce such cool projects. I guess you could say that they
are more comfortable with physics and math than I thought. The
fact that the students made incredible art about science and physics
instead of art history may have to do with the familiarity that
students have with science. After all they have taken many more
years of science than art.
The educational tourists that visit the school were also equally
excited to see art about science instead of the "unknown"
art history inpired creations. This project was a little anti-intellectual
in the sense that physics is an easy thing for anyone to relate
to, we all feel gravity and most educated people understand the
science behind these projects. In a sense, this project is POP
ART for educators. The students took the vernacular of the everyday
science class room and made art. Warhol would have been proud.
And I can be as smug as he was. I could say, “These simple
people that are scared of ambiguous art ideas. They gravitate
to and at marvel at my student’s creations, all because
the subject is something they can touch and feel.” No one
will probably read through this so my contempt for the concreteness
of science will go unnoticed.
I do hope that the students had fun and went away with a feeling
of success since they designed and executed their work in such
a competent and beautiful way. Jeff Robin
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| Andrew
Gloag
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As
the math teacher for the seniors, this project allowed me to be
a real force behind one of the most successful projects I have
seen at High Tech High. The project was extremely rigorous and
really did involve integration across multiple subjects. It was
incredibly rewarding to be part of something that led all the
students to really get excited and involved with the technical
side of what they were doing ? the ?group learning? session that
we had left everyone wishing we had more time to question each
other on their projects. In education this is, sadly, a rare occurrence.
Nonetheless, after two hours of learning and teaching each other
everyone felt that they could still do more to prepare themselves
for the final examination. The feeling of wanting more that I
feel we instilled in them that day is something that teachers
are constantly trying to elicit in their students.
The project itself was squarely based around
the physics and math from the start ? it seems to me that in order
to do truly integrated projects this is a necessary concession
to make. There are many aspects of mathematics that apply to projects
in high school but in order to ensure that those that we focus
on are the ones that we think of as our curriculum we need to
use those aspects as the framework upon which we hang the ideas
and creativity of the students. Although in the second semester
we imposed restrictions to force a degree of uniformity to the
projects it simply sharpened the focus on the math and science
and the creative force from the students was honed into making
work that was of a higher quality and really beautiful not just
different from everyone else?s. They were collectively creating
the model as they progressed ? pushing the bar higher by looking
at what every other group was doing and adapting their own product
to keep ahead of the pack.
Everyone had a chance to shine in the second
phase of this collaboration. Physics is simply communicating the
workings of the world in the language of mathematics. It?s as
much about the communicating as it is about the math.
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David
Berggren |
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must start by saying that I was a little skeptical of exactly how
an art teacher, a math teacher and an engineering teacher were going
to come together to create a meaning and quality senior project.
Thanks to Jeff’s visions and ideas and the hard work of all,
this project has turned out to be one of the best I have done in
my 5 years of teaching since coming out of industry and one which
I am very proud of.
We went through many ideas, in the beginning, as to what a project
that involved the three of our classes might look like and although
many seemed good a first glance we realized they were a bit of
a stretch for some of the classes’ content. I feel this
is all too common in cross disciplinary projects in which one
class tends to dominate a large portion of the content. After
many ideas we felt the science center type exhibits best fit all
three of our class contents with great math, physics, and engineering
concepts as well as artistic appeal and aesthetics.
As to why I feel we had the successes we did with this project
I would mostly attribute it to early planning and research as
well as the combination of the three of our skill sets. I feel
this project really pulled from all three classes very well and
had the teacher’s knowledge, skills and tools to support
it very well. Also our trip to San Francisco to visit the Exploratorium
and other museums was a tremendous asset for us to get ideas and
visions as well as do some concentrated planning away from the
distraction of school and home.
The last item in which I would like to reflect
on is how the students approached, worked through and learned
from this project. As with every project you are constantly thinking
about student engagement and learning. I was so excited to see
this project unfold and blossom as the students dove right into
it, took pride in their work and strode to create high quality
work. I feel the structure that was set before hand with weekly
check-ins as well as a fun and real project had much to do with
this. The students gave it their all pushed by the idea that their
projects were going to be displayed all around school and that
all the visitors, students and faculty were going to gaze upon
their work and learn from them. I suppose I could go on and on
about this project because it was so successful but enough is
enough. Thanks to both of my partners for making this such a fun
and rewarding project.
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