I’ve another almond croissant to start this day, and the sun has come out, and life is good. Though I’m still putting in the hours this week, the change of scenery has been like soothing massage after several long weeks. That’s the funny thing about professional development sessions. When they come up, I welcome them with gusto, ready for the excitement of introductions, conversations, and making. But boy are they exhausting—especially when you do them one after another. As was the case last week.

In yesterday’s post I talked about the Math Faire we hosted on behalf of the Alameda County Office of Education. It was a good event, with an okay turnout, but nothing overwhelming. Then, last Friday, we hosted our Prototype Faire…

Prototype Faire is our own miniature test-run of the Maker Faire. Students from each grade level showed off their own making projects that they’ve been working on, many of which they will take to the Maker Faire next month. (36 days and 12 minutes to go, according to their website’s countdown, which doesn’t not remind me of a ticking time-bomb…)

Anyway, here are the pictures from our Prototype Faire.

And a few videos. Our 7th graders in our making elective started work on a cardboard Rube Goldberg machine that was a pretty big hit. It had the feeling of Caine’s Arcade, which became a viral sensation a few years back.

And I thought this ship building was pretty cool. I like the engineering design of the added arm for stability.

And of course, Catapults. Students love catapults. Teachers…

It was fun. It was exhausting. I’m glad we followed it with a week away from school.

We have another PD session coming up on Friday, April 24: a Tour+ Programming workshop. So head to our Eventbrite page to sign up for that. And then comes Maker Faire.

…hoo boy.