Yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation of the culminating projects produced by Karen Glum’s eighth-grade coding and robotics class.

Each group had to design, prototype, and modify an electronic arcade game using mechanical principles that had been taught throughout the semester. The designs were impressively elaborate: a Wheel of Fortune, a Skeeball game that awarded points based on proximity to the bullseye, an interactive zen sculpture garden with a statue that rotated as night fell.

Each project showcased the group’s ability both to engineer a movable mechanism (e.g. roulette wheel rotated when a button was pushed, a large model duck that rotated its head and beak when it was approached). The projects also involved extensive computer coding. Students used light or distance sensors to measure inputs and wrote code in Microbitz, Java, or Python to generate prescribed outcomes: flashing lights that spelled “Winner” or “Loser,” electronic counters that awarded points, or movements (like the duck’s head that rotated to a certain angle, a prescribed number of times).

I was struck not only by the sophistication of these projects, but by the students’ palpable enthusiasm not only for their products but for their effectiveness in working together as a project team. This is design thinking at its best, an incredibly valuable experience for the students involved.

It highlights, too, the continuing evolution of our Middle School Innovation Lab and of the makerspace programs schoolwide. Congratulations to all involved!

Chris Garten
Head of School