Makerspace
At AAIS, our Makerspace serves as a hub for students to apply their creative and critical thinking skills while tackling real-world challenges. Through hands-on experience and the application of Design Thinking principles, students learn to develop innovative solutions and collaborate effectively with their peers. Embracing failure as part of the learning process, students also cultivate resilience and the ability to integrate knowledge from various disciplines. Our diverse Makerspace projects, ranging from crafts and gardening to stitching, circuits, AI and carpentry, provide opportunities for students to connect their skills and expertise to both classroom and community initiatives.
A Makerspace encourages creativity through idea generation, problem-solving and building something. This could look different in different grades, across the year. Students pick up several skills of ‘making’ and are encouraged to look for problems in the environment around them, where they could use these skills.
“Instead of thinking outside the box, get rid of the box” – Deepak Chopra
TALLEST PAPER TOWER
The Towering Paper Challenge invited participants to construct the tallest tower using just 30 sheets of paper and support a can of food at its pinnacle. This creative task encourages teamwork, problem-solving, and innovation as participants strategize to maximize height while ensuring structural integrity. Through brainstorming, design, and construction phases, participants experiment with folding techniques and configurations, tackling challenges collaboratively to achieve stability and balance. Ultimately, the challenge showcases how simple materials can lead to impressive feats of engineering, emphasizing the importance of creativity and resourcefulness in problem-solving.
PAPER BALL RUN CHALLENGE
In the Paper Ball Run Challenge, participants are tasked with designing and constructing a paper runway to guide a ball from the top to the bottom, aiming for the longest possible runtime. This engaging activity stimulates creativity, problem-solving, and engineering skills as participants strategize to create the most efficient and stable runway. Through experimentation with paper folding, shaping, and assembly techniques, participants aim to optimize the ball’s trajectory and minimise friction to achieve the longest runtime. The challenge encourages innovation and teamwork as participants collaborate to overcome obstacles and refine their designs, ultimately demonstrating the principles of physics and engineering in a fun and interactive way.
AUSTRALIAN COLLABORATION
The Australian Collaborative Project, organized by Swinburne University, Melbourne provided a valuable opportunity for cross-cultural collaboration and skill development between our 9th graders and their Australian counterparts. Split into two phases, the Trashbot Challenge and the Forensics Case, the project emphasised teamwork and problem-solving. In the Trashbot Challenge, students devised AI-driven solutions for school waste management, fostering coding skills and awareness of AI’s impact on societal issues. Collaborating with Australian peers, insights into environmental perspectives were gained. The subsequent Forensics Case reinforced technological applications in law enforcement, highlighting the importance of collaboration in addressing societal challenges. Overall, the project underscored the significance of teamwork and technological literacy in addressing contemporary issues, making it a rewarding experience for students invested in global collaboration and diverse perspectives.
