Working with Kids
Katie Richmond
In Her Words: Part One

Follow along as we share stories from our female staff, junior collaborators, and alumni about why they love being girls who make things with their own two hands. 

In Her Words: Part One
From the Field, One-Day Workshops
Joshua Rothhaas
Bowling Ball Billiards : One Day Workshop

Presented with a small stack of lumber, a few hours to build, and the idea of playing pool with bowling balls, today's kids’ creativity and ingenuity took us from a pile of 18 sticks of 2x4 to a fully functioning (and delightfully fun!) game of billiards that featured a pool cue, a bridge, four "pockets" and bumpers.

Bowling Ball Billiards : One Day Workshop
From the Field, One-Day Workshops
Joshua Rothhaas
Art-ering Ram: One Day Workshop

What a day! From the prompt “Mega-Paintbrush” to the final product  -- a print-making machine lovingly dubbed the “Art-ering Ram” -- this project epitomized what we do here at Project Ember. Our prompts serve a specific purpose; push kids out of their comfort zone in terms of scale or complexity...

Art-ering Ram: One Day Workshop

Day 5

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Session E: Working At The Car Wash, Yeah!

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Wow. What a week! We began with the simple starting point of 'car wash' and we have built a gull-winged Tesla that can comfortably seat five people, transporting them through a multi-colored Floptopus, car-cleaning rotating rollers, water jets and a repurposed shop vacuum drying system! Not bad for five days work, we think you'll agree!

Friday provides us with one of our shortest, but often most productive, build sessions. It is always incredible to see how much our campers can achieve with the added constraint of a deadline, and this group was no exception. The morning build session saw our teams conduct trials and testing, decorate, embellish and fine tune the various parts of their projects.

After a well-deserved lunch and park break, 2.15pm fast approaches. This is the moment we've all been waiting for...

Welcome to the Project Ember Car Wash!

All our passengers enter the 'PROJEMB' Tesla through an elegant gull-wing door. The Tesla team had the tall order of creating a vehicle that could comfortably seat five people - and they took the idea of comfort to the next level, with padded seats and a trunk to boot! They also devised a track and pulley system, ensuring 'PROJEMB' will glide smoothly through the car wash conveyor belt.  

A few final tests are needed before our car wash is ready for action. Christopher checks the water release system, and finds a willing participant in Evan. (He seems pretty happy with it!) 

We're now ready to add the colored water and put the Floptopus to work.

Our first crew through the car wash are the 'Tesla Team': Cory, Devran, Evan, Lucas A and Yildiz. They receive the colored water experience...

Next through the car wash are Asha, Varun, Lavanya, Ella and Zach. 

Unfortunately we did not prepare enough milk jugs of colored water, so buckets of water are brought in as a replacement. 'PROJEMB's passengers get a little wetter this time around...

Next up: Alyssa, Michael, Sophie and Logan get the Floptopus treatment.

We wouldn't want you to think it was just the kids who got soaking wet - we put the Junior Collaborators through too...

After a good soaking from the Floptopus, 'PROJEMB' makes its way through a series of rotating rollers. All the trials, errors and iterations earlier this week have paid off, as the side rollers now operate using a neat spinning system using castors, dowel and paracord (check out the videos later in this post to see them in action).

As 'PROJEMB' makes its way through the rotating rollers, there is the added surprise of an inspired water jet system. [All the photos below can become full sized images - just click on them].

After all the washing and cleaning action our Tesla has encountered, it is now time for 'PROJEMB' and her passengers to dry off...

Now that 'PROJEMB' has been thoroughly washed and dried, our car wash comes to an end and the Tesla door is closed for the last time.

But before we say farewell to our fantastic campers, here are some videos capturing all the action...

We hope you have enjoyed this project as much as we have. Our first week in San Jose has proved to be a fun and focussed one. Our campers have shown what can be achieved with a powerful combination of perseverance, determination, enthusiasm and ingenuity. We think the laughter, smiles and shrieks of joy speak for themselves!

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Session B: Are You Ready To Travel Through Time?!

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Pack your bags. We’re about to travel through time and space! 

The past few days have been a whirlwind of enterprise, enthusiasm, exploration and experimentation. Our 'time machine' narrative has been continuously evolving, as have our campers confidence and skill-sets; learning and using new tools and equipment has allowed them to devise bold structures, mechanisms, characters and set designs that go beyond the technical, into the artistic terrain of world-building.

Both Carter (top left) and Aaron (bottom right) use the jigsaw to create parts and props for this weeks project. Shohum (bottom left) uses the skilsaw to carefully cut walls for the time machine whilst Zara (top right) finds the hand saw helpful to cut out buttons and design details.

As our Friday deadline swiftly approached, teamwork was still top of the agenda; with campers stepping up to offer help and assistance on different parts of the project, ensuring everything was ready in time for the grand reveal.

 

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for!

Our intrepid travellers enter the time machine, all set to journey into the past...

Unbeknown to them, the time machine encounters a glitch (dum, dum, dum), and instead of returning to a previously lived scene from the past, they find themselves in an alternate reality in which the dinosaurs never became extinct! 

It is here that our time travellers are met by the Mine-o-sauraus and Boss-o-sauras (Pan-o-sauraus was too tall to get in the shot. He was even too tall to fit under our 8ft high shade structure!), who are mining the rivers of Pompeii (pre-eruption onf Vesuvius of course) during the middle of the gold rush. 

Pan-o-sauraus is mining for gold, whilst Boss-o-sauruas oversees the work.

A close-up of Pompeii.

Our travellers return to their trusty time machine, intending to go back to the future...

But they unknowingly remain in this alternate reality, and when they arrive in the future they find themselves on Mars! The dinosaurs (who have since evolved into lizard overlords) mined the Earth into extinction and all remaining forms of life (including the human race) had to move to Mars. 

A mountainous Martian landscape, with our historic homeland in the distance.

Our time travellers arrive at a time when the lizard overlords are feuding with the native marsupial people about the 9-5 work day.

The native marsupial people protest the 9-5 work day.

Whilst the native marsupial people believe in a free world for everyone, the lizard overlords are able to enforce the 9-5 work day, by blocking the portal back to Earth.

A lizard overlord guards the portal.

To see time travel in action, check out our short video clip...

 

And now for a little preview of what went on behind-the-scenes...

We think you'll agree it's been quite a week! We would like to thank our campers for their energy, enthusiasm, determination and perseverance (as well as their patience in waiting for this blog post – we’ve been experiencing a few technical difficulties here at Project Ember HQ, but we’re all sorted now).