Wednesday | Blender Design & Animation Lab | Age 10+

Details

Design isn’t just about creation; it’s about harnessing creativity to solve real world problems and improve people's lives- through the use of innovation. Our program takes students on an exciting journey of solving real world problems through hands-on exploration & product development. To think like a designer requires dreaming up wild ideas, taking time to tinker and test, and being willing to fail early and often.
Invention, however, requires more than just curiosity and creativity – it requires the KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS to carry a design to fruition. TechLabs teachers help students gain the knowledge to facilitate THEIR ideas, THEIR invention, and THEIR vision and to show them how to implement it with new technologies.

 

The specific project theme for this course changes throughout the year so participants alway experience something exciting and new. See the individual offer for current project theme.

Examples of past themes:

Candylicious: UltimateBoard Game
Mentoring for Migros Bugnplay Design Competition

Our 2019 after-school DFF class endered their semester project into the National Bugnplay Competition. A digital youth competition for games, code, robitics, and multimedia. They took home 3 prizes including Space Award, Best Classroom Project, and the opportunity to present at Design Biennale Zurich 2019. Here is their winning submission Candylicious

Robot Petting Zoo
Product Design focused on Design Thinking

Students are introduced to the concept of Design Thinking through designing and building their own Robotic Pet that responds to various sensor inputs with sound, light, and wagging tails, wiggling ears, waving arms, whatever their imagination can dream up. Kids are encouraged to think outside the box, no idea is a bad idea and the more ideas the better! They develope the code and build the electromechanical system necessary to bring thier pet to life.

Enabling The Future: Robot Hand Lab
Design of a Prosthetic 3D Printed Hand for charity

This is no ordinary 3D printing class, this is using technology for humanitarian aid! In collaboration with the Enabling The Future project, children design, create and deliver a prosthetic robotic hand to underprivileged children throughout the world. 1 in 2000 children are born each day that can benefit from a prosthetic device produced in conjunction with this program.  Over 6000 prosthetic arms have already been successfully donated by Enabling The Future. This highly focused course teaches how a group of STEM students can come together and provide access to life-improving technology. We have built a special curriculum, utilizing all of TechLabs’ resources, to engage children in a highly focused project where they will get to experience the impact of open source technology to lower barriers to innovation and provide access to life-improving technology. TechLabs is Switzerland's ONLY Enabling The Future Certified fabrication and assembly partner.

Swarm Robotics
TechLabs in-house designed robot specialized in cooperative robotic behavior

From automated vacuum cleaners, to Mars rovers, to deep-sea exploration, robots are everywhere. But a new kind of robot has arrived. They are small, cheap, & simple but they have a special skill: they work as a team! Inspired by nature, these robots work together to achieve tasks that even a more sophisticated and expensive robot can’t achieve alone. Similar to the sophisticated beehives bees are able to build together or the huge complexity of ant colonies.

In this class, you will:

• discover biomimicry
• build your own high-maneuverability robot
• program it using BBC micro:bit
• define a task to accomplish as a team
• upgrade your robot using 3D modeling and 3D printing
• learn to work as a team

Check out TechLab's Swarm Robot TL1 on Kickstarter!

UN Sustainable Development Goals Projects
Series of projects based on the UN's SDGs-- a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 for the year 2030. In collaboration with, Citizen Cyber Lab, Open Seventeen, Micro:bit - do your :bit, MakeX Spark and other similar initiatives, we incorporate their prompts to mentor students through the design process to reach desired outcomes.

Design & test Build Oil Spill Cleaning Boats

Experimenting with an Auto Farming Device

Interactive Installation SDG Goal 14: Life Below Water

Engineering Arts
Series of projects that bring out the "A" in STEAM as we use technology to create art.

Interactive Light Installation

Build and program Light Painting Robots

Game Controller Design
Design a Video Game & Controller

Join us for a fun-filled week where you will not only program your own video game but also design your very own Game Controller thanks to 3D-Printing! This is not your average controller; the TechLabs controller will let you control your game using motion, image, and voice recognition thanks to AI. 

 

Current Course Project

Use Blender to Create Beautiful 3D models for Video Games, Animations & More.

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool set used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and, formerly, video games. In this introductory course students will learn to:

Technology

Blender

Design

Animation