Digital Design

Our Digital Design class took a field trip down to the Autodesk Gallery to explore the wide variety of innovative applications that computer automated design has helped make possible. We explored how CAD is used in countless fields including architecture, medicine, gaming, robotics, renewable energy and augmented reality. In the picture above we are exploring how AR can be used with topography to simulate the flow of water based on the relative elevation of the sand students physically arranged with their hands. Check out the video below to get a better sense of how it works. Following our tour of the gallery we had a tutorial in using Fusion 360 to build a chair. The video below gives you an idea of how quickly they could use the symmetry of a chair in order to create a design. It's amazing how quickly imagination can become something tangible using these relatively new tools. I'm curious how much this experience will impact our students' ability to address the many...

In browsing through tutorial videos for Tinkercad I came across this video, a timelapse of a watermelon being created .  Cool stuff, but fast-paced on timelapse so I consulted with one of our 4th grade TinkerCad experts here at Stuart Hall and we figured out the steps he used. Check it out below and start making your own Tinkercad custom parts. Digital Design Students here at Convent & Stuart Hall will be starting on this tomorrow.

This past Friday we invited K-12 faculty and staff into the Spark Studio here at Convent & Stuart Hall in order to learn how various students and faculty are currently using the machine in both practical as well as creative capacities. We had a superstar presenter from the 3rd grade who has mastered the workflow for tracing and cutting on the machine. He created his g-hack plane (pictured below) from a drawing and printed it on proofgrade draftboard. We also had an 11th grader come in to show the work he's been doing for his IB Visual Arts Portfolio as well as personal interest. He's created the game board pictured above for Settlers of Catan primarily using the laser cutter and was the first at our school to start laser cutting pictures. He is now working on a cube with each of the faces laced similar to that pictured below. I was also excited that several of my digital design students came in to share their work! Some of them have really started ...

It's been an exciting start to Digital Design highlighted by many successes and aha moments as well as many challenges along the way. Students just finished their First Cut project using hand-art scanned into the Glowforge Laser Cutter and then cut out without any engraving. To step up the complexity students then had to do something with their design to make it 3D or interactive in some way. Some created mobiles while others created a 3D rendering of a house or sunglasses that you can wear. Other projects include a vase of colorful cardboard flowers and a jelly donut! Check out their work here . I really appreciated how students found ways in which they could be creative to take their art beyond the 2D drawing as they figured out how to use the Glowforge. Up next is printing Photos on Cardboard with students publishing 3-5 photos in their collection based on a theme of their choice. I chose architecture focusing on modern vs. classic SF architecture including skyscrapers down...

After an exciting first class teaching Digital Design I'm increasingly inspired by the ability for an individual to define digital design in such a variety of ways. I found myself inspired by the variety of work I saw from past IB Visual Arts students and my conversation with my Visual Arts department chair. I'm excited to explore how to use the laser cutter, 3D printers and our new milling machine with both practical as well as creative applications. It's amazing how many digital tools now exist that weren't available when I was in school. I can't help but think how exposure to these tools and proficiency with them will shape our world in the near future. As part of our first class I used a google form to ask the students which type/s of art interest them and why. I played around creating a word cloud of their responses and found it a fun and meaningful interpretation of where I see them not only on their first day of Digital Design, but as 9th grade students sta...

Digital Design! Welcome to my digital design blog! I'm excited to be teaching a Digital Design class at Convent & Stuart Hall in San Francisco in our Unkefer Spark Studio  as I'm a strong believer that connections between disciplines that have been traditionally separated in the academic world tend to lead to the most valuable educational opportunities. As I start to explore the exciting intersection of art, science and technology I am focusing on the process as well as the product. That being said, students will be blogging their work on a weekly basis as a way to organize their thoughts and reflect back on their work while sharing the process and product with a more public audience. I plan to have them reflect on skills learned that week, successes and challenges throughout the week and their plan for a final project. For our first unit we'll be exploring the Glowforge laser cutter. I've been wanting to explore this versatile tool for more than a year now an...