Fusion MKIV, the fourth iteration of our Grade 10 STEM cohort, is off to a very quick start this year! After getting to know each other and learning the basics of design thinking back in June at our retreat, we jumped into a very public design challenge at the Vancouver Maker Faire on the weekend.  With the prompt, "How might we design an object that would significantly improve the visitor experience at Science World," the boys had two hours to interview visitors and come up with some kind of solution to the problem.  They used available materials and tools to build a prototype to demonstrate that solution. And check out the cool LED name tags that they're wearing in the photo below. Somehow, in the first week of school, we also found time to learn how to solder and make these!

After each team was done, they had time to wander the exhibits and get a look at what other people make and hopefully fuel their thinking about the kinds of things that they will want to create over the year and different ways of making things in general.

Throughout the year, all of the boys will be writing their own blogs documenting their progress and thinking.  Many of the posts will be assigned to them but I'm hoping that many posts will also simply be ways of documenting things that are important to them.  I encourage you to follow along and comment as you read.  You can find links to each of their blogs in the right sidebar under "My Blog List." Writing blog posts can be a lonely business and the interaction with others about what the students are thinking about will be encouraging and hopefully give them useful feedback on the concepts they are working with or their process.