Electronic Waste PSA

Orthographic Projections

When entering this year’s STEM course, I wanted to focus on equipping the students with valuable skills that relate to engineering, problem solving and organizational thinking. Below are a few pictures from our orthographic drawing exercise, which promotes accurate drawings in an engineering design context.

The deliverables for this exercise include (i) an isometric drawing, (ii) a three-dimensional reconstruction, and dimensional photographs from each orthogonal plane that show visible and hidden features. Students learn basic rules of build safety using a hack saw and hot glue gun.

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A Tribe of Success

“For millions of years, people have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political or even musical”

The above quote is borrowed from the author Seth Godin who wrote a book entitled: “Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us”  A tribe unifies a group of people around a common goal, and can take many shapes, sizes and organizational structures. When a new school is launched, as with a new company, there is a process of branding the identity of the tribe.  Successful branding requires that the vision is attainable at all levels of entry (novice, intermediate, skilled and expert, alike).

Knowing that teachers are very meta-cognitive when it comes to these things, we asked “What does it mean to be successful” from a branding perspective? But then also what does it mean in general? In fact, we thought it was such a good question, that we adopted it as our brand identity immediately. Except now we need to tell you what SUCCESS looks like.

On October 17th, we will be launching the first installment of the monthly Hill-Freedman World Academy Living Knowledge (WALK) Speaker Series. We hope that these speakers will help the school community to create a living definition of what success looks like. The branding process will take time, and we believe that the completed product will be a genuine artifact that attracts more successful people, concepts, and partnerships as the high school grows into itself…and beyond.

Ready to Launch

Please consider funding our Indiegogo campaign. We are grateful for any contributions that may advance our cause. Thank you!

http://igg.me/at/warplab

Summary

In the current project, we intend to create a student-run rapid prototyping hub in Northwest Philadelphia to enrich the growth and stability of the community, and to foster a globally-competitive spirit using STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) subject areas.

What We Need & What You Get

• 3D printers
• Digitizers
• PLA printing filament
• Breadboards
• Wires/Cables
• Arduinos
• Bitalinos (Biometric Tools)
• Conductive Thread
• LEDs
• Sensors of all types
• Soldering guns
• Hot glue guns
• Fasteners
• Microtools
• Macrotools (hammers, drills, screwdrivers, plyers)
• Bandsaw
• Lathe
• Hard drives for project archival
• A Super Flashy and Informative Web Presence

• As a financial contributor of the project, you will receive custom products created by the students in the WARP Lab, which include key chains, phone cases, participate in lab tours and tutorials, and receive individualized feedback from our WARP Lab forum for your own “DO try this at home” projects.
• If we do not reach our entire goal, the funds would be primarily used to purchase a 3D printer. This would allow the students to design and sell consumables to support their continuing fundraising efforts.

The Impact

At its most basic level, the strength of a community is derived from cumulative impact of each member and, even more importantly, the skills they possess and share with others. Of paramount importance is the development of skills that provide today’s students with a strategic advantage to compete and thrive in an increasingly global economy. The community-based learning center that will arise from the WARP Lab will be a crucial component of that skill-building process.

 

Other Ways You Can Help

If you would like to participate as a non-financially-vested member of the WARP Lab initiative, please share ‘used but still valuable’ raw materials such as metal, wood, paper, electronics, etc.  We value your contributions, in whatever form they may take.