Viewing: Renbrook Summer Adventure
July 6, 2012
Continuing to Develop Stop-Motion Animations
Our challenge groups are continuing to develop their stop motion animations. All groups have finished planning their projects on storyboards, and most groups have filmed some or all of their animations. It’s been interesting to see the different topics of the animations. We have several videos that involve model cars (often involved in some sort of police pursuit), but we also have battling snakes and worms, laughing chairs, and animated figurines. One group had some extra time and animated their own drawings. Another group was helpful in inflating some balloons for us and worked them into their video. (We had fun creating a video where they slowly got buried in nearly 200 balloons.) All videos will be posted under the Camper Creations part of this site as they are completed.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 6, 2012
Developing Comic Books and Compositions
We had some new activities this week during free choice. This week, campers during the 1:30-2:30 time block had the opportunity to create their own comic books using a program called Comic Life. (See links section to the right.) After making a sample comic using some of my stock photos, the campers planned out their own comic books by choosing what each photo would look like. On Tuesday, the campers photographed most of their comics, and today, they are using Comic Life to turn their photos into creative comic books. I’m going to try to print them all today so the kids can bring them home, but I’ll also post the copies here. Our Garage Band group (2:30-3:20) has grown this week, but the campers again preferred to experiment for themselves. They will have the opportunity to share their creations today! It’s been a pleasure working with both sets of campers this week!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 1, 2012
Page Design, Scratch
Our seniors are doing great work! The partnership creating the shapeshifting pill has developed an impressive print media advertisement using advanced design skills in Adobe InDesign. With some extra time, they’ve taken the initiative to experiment with a program called Scratch, which is a program that helps users to learn some of the concepts of programming in a scaffolded environment. It is, I believe, created by MIT students and has become very popular in the educational setting. I’m so impressed that these campers are teaching themselves how to use Scratch without any help from me. Our other senior campers are meticulously working to create a print media advertisement for their fictional port of Minecraft onto the Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. Their attention to detail is helping them to create an impressive product! Bravo!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 1, 2012
Planning Animations
Campers who are creating stop motion animations are in the midst of planning their projects. This usually comes in two pieces: preparing the actual props and scenery and technology, and storyboarding the video so they can plan out what their videos will look like. This is important because they need to know how many frames of video they need to shoot. For example, one group wants to have eight seconds of two dueling stuffed animals staring each other down before a battle. With 15 frames per second of video in our stop motion projects, we know that 15 fps x 8 seconds = 120 frames of staring. This planning is really key to producing a successful video, and the groups are doing a great job!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
June 30, 2012
Radio Show Planning
The challenge campers who are developing their own radio shows are doing a great job. As they finish writing a basic script, they are turning it into a production storyboard to specify what dialogue they will use along with what sound effects and music they will use. I love seeing their stories come together, and I hope to have them start to record and edit late next week.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
June 30, 2012
Creating an Interactive Story Book
Free choice campers in the first group are creating their own interactive story books in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure books. They started by planning their stories on Monday using a program called Inspiration to create flow charts to show the path that different readers could take. Yesterday, they finished and printed these organizers and started to illustrate their stories. We’re scanning them in, and today, the campers will finish illustrating their stories and will start to put them on our website.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
June 29, 2012
Learning Garage Band
Our end-of-the day Free Choice group is learning how to use Garage Band to develop their own music. Garage Band is one of those apps that’s best learned through experimentation, and the campers in our group have elected to “just mess around” with Garage Band to see what they can create. We’re here to help, however! On Friday, these campers will have the option to share their creations with the rest of the group! I’ll also post them here, with the campers’ permission.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
June 28, 2012
Creating Radio Shows or Stop Motion Animation
The challenge groups have their choice of two activities: creating a stop-motion animation video using iStopMotion or writing and producing an old-time radio show and digitally inserting sound effects and music using Audacity and Freesound. (I’m happy to add in more options as time goes on.) It’s great to see the ideas start to come together. As of now, three groups have developed their plans for their stop-motion videos, and I’m eager to see the sword-fighting stuffed animals, the exploding cans of soda, and the laughing chairs that various groups are planning to film. The radio shows are also coming along well, and I can’t want to hear the alien invasion show that one group is preparing (inspired by the War of the Worlds broadcast).
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
June 27, 2012
Marketing a Product
This year, the senior computer group is focusing on marketing a product or idea using print media, website development, video commercials, and radio advertisements. They will produce all of these products in-house. On the first day, they were given the option of choosing to market a real or imaginary product, service, or idea. Because of mixed interests, the group split in two, and both groups are focusing on marketing products. One group is working to promote a fictitious shape shifting pill that will allow the user to turn into an animal for a short time, and the other group will advertise a port of the popular game Minecraft onto the vintage TRS-80 home computer platform. Since choosing these products on Monday, the campers have worked on developing “bibles” for their product that explain, in detail, what their product can and cannot do. (Since their products are, in different ways, fictional, these “bibles” will help them to stay grounded and committed to the “rules” of their product as they develop their marketing.) Today we start production!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss