A Maker Faire in Elwood School District

In conjunction with the National Week of Making, students in kindergarten through eighth grade in the Elwood Union Free School District participated in an afternoon of discovery, creativity and fun as they attended the district’s Maker Faire on June 15, 2016.

Faculty and staff members volunteered to lead workshops where students and their parents practiced basic physics, math and engineering principles. Each workshop allowed students to engage in age-appropriate interactive activities and challenges that put to the test their problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

The district’s youngest students attended workshops including “What Floats Your Boat,” where they designed and raced sailboats; “Ozobots,” which allowed the them to program small robots to navigate through mazes and perform tricks; and “Full of Hot Air” where the students built small cars powered by air from balloons. At the intermediate and middle school levels, students visited the “Marble Roller Coaster” workshop where they used common objects to create a roller coaster for a marble to travel through; they became “catapult creators” by using simple objects such as a spoon and popsicle sticks to create a catapult; and they used coding to program robots to perform various functions and navigate around obstacles at the “Dash and Dot” workshop.

All the students were also able to spend time in a general MakerSpace environment to explore, discover and tinker at different stations with magnets, paper airplanes, pipe cleaners and more. The well-attended event hosted more than 150 Elwood students and their parents.

The district, the respective PTAs at Harley Avenue Primary, James H. Boyd Intermediate and Elwood Middle School, the Elwood Teachers Alliance, the Elwood Council of Administrators, the Elwood Education Endowment, the Elwood Booster Club, and the Elwood Public Library collectively sponsored the event.

The district extends its thank you to all the volunteers and participants for helping to make the event such a success.

Photo Caption: Elwood students created structures using Q-Ba-Maze 2.0 blocks

Photo Caption: Elwood students James Rourke and Daniel Rourke enjoyed programing the robots to perform various tricks.

Photo Caption: Elwood students designed and built sailboats and blew through a straw to power their boats to race their peers.

Photos courtesy of the Elwood Union Free School District