Beginners Guide/Projects

Special Projects: Virtual Pinball and Step Master Machines

Please note credit for these projects need to given to Jason Bloor/Sonic Vision Studios.  He is employed by the School working with students and contributing himself to the projects.   You can connect to him via his youtube channel or you can email via the teacher in charge of this page. (myles.webb@gmail.com)

Virtual Pinball Machines

These machines have been built at school and featured the school and staff in various versions.  In the initial versions students and staff featured as part of the game, digitising their voices and making media that were part of the game process.  

Following this process we looked at hosting some kind of E-Sports event involving the machines.  This culminated in our first virtual pinball competition which was held in 2018.   This involved having three seperate cameras set up to record the competition and then was commentated on.   We followed this format again in 2019 with a second competition with a new table.  This table was based on a movie that featured students from around our school in acting roles.    The table tie in worked well and was repeated again in 2020.   This was the final year of our 'studio' broadcasts of the competition, when the competition was recorded and then produced and details added following the competition.   We had by this point some sixty or seventy students entering the competition from across our school.

Following the three years of competition the decision was made for the following year to broadcast the competition live from the school tv studios and stream it on Youtube.   Logistically this was more of a challenge for the production, however it also increased the involvement of the students in the competition.  Examples of this such as the 2022 final shown below and also included a full competition in 2021 and 2023.

Another major piece of hardware, which the students were involved in creating at school is our Step Master Dance Machine

This was built by a staff member (Jason) with the assistance of a group of students.   These students and staff were involved in the creation of a full sized Dance Machine.  The videos that play on the machine were created by, and feature the students from our school.  

There is a dedicated page on Mr Bloors Youtube channel that details the process involved in the making and features a number of videos created by students.  It is the videos that the school has made that feature in the Step master Dance Competition.  This competition like the Pinball is Livestream via Youtube when the competitors 

This detailed video from our Schools Jason Bloor, shows the entire process of the making of the Step Master Machine

Beginners Guide to 3D Printing: Student Centred and Created Lesson

This video is a step by step instruction on how to create a basic 3D Printed design using Tinkercad. The site is free and is what the prints on this blog are produced with.

   

This video was produced by our students in the classroom as is considered the basic step by step guide for someone to produce a basic print.  For the purposes of what we've been doing at our school we have used Tinkercad almost exclusively as a design tool for the duration that this blog has been running (nearly ten years)

The purpose of the short video is for students/adults to follow the steps (assuming that they have a Tinkercad account which is what it uses) 

This is not any kind of endorsement however as a classroom teacher this design software has suited a range of students during a number of years and it continues to be viable and incredibly hands on.  It is also worth noting that the interface has suited students, it has excellent classroom options and management (including automatically saving of designs and work) and is a free web based browser.   There have been times in the past when we have looked at other software or used slightly different set up (including our seniors using programs such as Inkscape or Sketchup) however these have been short lived or the students have been instead returning to use Tinkercad (which includes some of our senior students who are 12 and 13 years old).