Wooden patio chair blog post

We attempted to create a chair. We did not complete the chair. We decided upon this project because we both wanted to become more proficient in woodworking. This was a good way to bond and become more knowledgeable woodworkers.

A big challenge for us was getting the required materials. We did not necessarily overcome this challenge, as we never got all of the required materials. One big challenge that we overcame was ace hardware not having all of the wood we needed

We learned how to manage time and how to use a power saw. I think we will not finish the chair because we messed up the wood by cutting it wrong but if we had time we would buy more wood and then finish the chair. If another group did this they should do some of it before maker fair. The chair costs an estimated $40 to make.

Maker Faire 2019 Bath Bombs- Eva FG and Sofie

DIY Bath Bombs

For Maker Faire, we decided to create our own bath bombs. We first discovered the idea on the Maker Faire website. They looked really fun, and you can customize them any way you like. Also, they are pretty simple and don’t have complicated ingredients. We didn’t end up using that recipe, but it inspired us to look up other recipes online. We decided to make four bath bombs, and to make them orange scented. Though making bath bombs isn’t exactly solving a problem, they are really relaxing and fun to use. We initially wanted to try marbling, but didn’t have enough time. One challenge that we faced, was not having the right molds. Instead, we used two measuring cups stacked together, which made the bath bombs turn out a completely different shape than the regular molds. We eventually found the regular molds and made the rest of the bath bombs with those. They had plastic parts inside that shaped them into smiley faces, which added a special touch. If we had more time, we would try more recipes to perfect the bath bombs, and try a variety of different colors and techniques. If we did these again, we would use plastic wrap inside the molds so they would come out more easily, because we had trouble with that. Also, we would make sure that we stirred fast enough in the beginning so it doesn’t lose it's fizz. Buying all the ingredients (including molds) would cost around $40, but it would make many batches of bath bombs. This was a really fun project and know we know how to make these for ourselves at home.

Sustainable Paper Making

Our goal for this project was to create paper in a sustainable way, and because we are not allowed to cut down trees, we decided to go dig inside a recycling bin, where we found lots of paper. It was Jonah's idea that we should make paper out of paper that cannot be used for anything anymore else. At first, we were thinking about working with Meyer, but then we realized it was impossible to build a zip line going off of a deck (which is what we where going to do.) Instead, we decided to make recycled paper and Meyer branched off of our group because he wanted to do something else. We searched the web for how to make recycled paper and we found this nifty video that showed us how to make recycled paper.

We started out by doing research and later moved on to make a sketch. Which later turned into a model, a prototype. Then we made a larger one which worked and functioned a lot better. We had a problem when we couldn’t find any mesh, but luckily Mr. Cohen found some mesh that we could use.

Throughout this process, we learned various things: we learned how to make colored paper (that was really just because we discovered some colored paper that was in the recycling) and most of all, we had fun! The process of making paper is actually quite simple: first, you have to find some paper preferably in the recycling so you are saving trees, not using more of them, then rip it up, and put it in a blender. Next, you fill up the blender with water and blend it for 30 seconds, then you take it out and put it down on your custom-made sifter (the paper pulp goes onto the mesh) the mesh lets all of the water out and keeps the blended paper in (which is what all of our paper is made out of.) After that, we put the paper on to newspaper to iron it, when we ironed the paper it became thinner, plus it was drying faster. But since we wanted it to dry evenly, and we didn’t want to handle an iron all day. We set a heat lamp, and we let it sit overnight with the heat lamp over it, and the next day it was dry.

If we had more time, we would try to figure out a way to make paper in a more sustainable way, a way that we could make more paper and even step farther would be a machine that would make the paper for us. It would also be cool to find some chemicals that would breakdown the paper, making it possible to make it thinner.




This is one of the links that we used to help us make the paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR_218EtLJU

Check out our website! You can find a carpool, in AND out of school.

            

By Livia and Amber 

          Cars produce about 4.6 metric tons of carbon per year. We wanted to help parents reduce amount fossil fuels coming from their cars, so we decided to make a website so that parents can find carpools easier. Because of our limited time and that we didn't spend any money, we had to make a template on a google doc first before moving onto a real site.

          To get inspiration on how to make our website, we looked at the BPC website, so that we could do a similar format. We also did some research and found another carpool website, which we used to find out what a carpool website’s format type is. We then made 3 templates ideas of what we could do: Template 1, Template 2, and Template 3 (final copy). We interviewed teachers and lower school parents, and had them vote on their favorite template. Template 3 (final copy) got the most votes, but that was also the most complicated one, and we knew it would stretch our coding and google docs knowledge/experience. 

          When we started to work, we realized we can’t embed a map onto google docs (embedding a map means to paste a google map image into your document/site, this is used so that users can zoom in and out to find the place they are looking for on your site). We did lots of research for many classes for recommendable website makers and we tried over and over on google docs. We asked teachers, parents, and students for anything they might know on this. On the Maker Fair day, we were exploring and researching when we found google website maker, we very glad we kept searching. We learned that there are not always going to be ways to fulfill everyone's needs, but also learned that we shouldn’t give up straight away, we should keep looking until we figure something out.

          Though we did not get the fully functional, perfect website we had been hoping to make, we have a good start and learned a lot. We learned about how to format websites, and we learned many new ways to use google docs. We found out that there is another website that was made earlier this year by a BPC parent, and we are hoping to work with her and combine our ideas to make an even better website over the summer. For other people looking to do something similar, our advice would be to interview parents and teachers before doing any work, and we try to find someone who has experience making websites that can teach you a little bit about the process.

Plastic bottle pots and planters by Sadie C

My project was to make pots out of old plastic bottles that also created more planting spaces for people who don’t have much space for gardening. My inspiration for the project stemmed from a planter I saw at the Wellington Botanical Garden that was made from old plastic milk jugs, and I wanted to do something like  that for the maker fair. One challenge for me was that I couldn’t find the right kind of hook to mount my project on the wall , so I ended up (My project was to make pots out of old plastic bottles that also created more planting spaces for people who don’t have much space for gardening. My inspiration for the project stemmed from a planter I saw at the Wellington Botanical Garden that was made from old plastic milk jugs, and I wanted to do something like  that for the maker fair. One challenge for me was that I couldn’t find the right kind of hook to mount my project on the wall , so I ended up ( (This is my maker fair booth being set up) just having the milk bottles as pots on the ground.                                                                                           

The original idea was to make an indoor wall mounted garden with a drainage system and some LED lights, but that proved to be too complicated to finish in like 7 hours, so I decided to do a few different examples of  outdoor planters from old bottles. Something I learned in the process is that no matter how much you plan, you might still screw something up, or discover some kind of design flaw that will force you to comepletly change your presentation or set up. If I had more time, I would’ve  found that hook and mounted my projects on the wall. The hook that I needed probably cost about 8 dollars, although you could probably use a normal hook. The cost of the plants varies depending on the plant, and the rest of the materials are free or very cheap.https://balconygardenweb.com/best-vegetables-to-grow-in-pots-most-productive-vegetables/ This is a link to a website for small space gardening

Boatatron: A Way to Clean Trash by Charlie, Francis, and Jake

Boatatron

By Charlie, Jake, and Francis

Introduction

Our project was to help clean up trash in aquatic environments with a cost effective and sustainable way. We decided to create the Boatatron. The idea was that using the old motor of a remote control car we could create a buoyant semi-aquatic vessel with the goal of collecting trash. We call it the BOATOTRON©. We faced many challenges along the way but in the end it mostly worked. We were inspired because we noticed that a lot of water environments were haunted with trash. This helps the world and us personally, because our objective was to help resolve the problems that we (humans) have caused.

Our struggles and what we learned 

As many Maker Fair participants may know, having a problem during the making part of the Fair is nearly inevitable. Many of the problems were predictable, and even in our brainstorms they were pointed out, like waterproofing (already stated), moving fast enough in the water, the nets, and floatation. Having to convert a land-based vehicle to an aquatic vessel, waterproofing the vehicle was extremely hard. We used an excessive amount of duct tape (we could have used less to make it more sustainable) to waterproof it. Of course, we then learned that duct tape was not the stickiest when in water. So instead, we could use seals, and persisted meticulously checking for flaws in our prototype. Another problem was when we had to find a way to make it float. Charlie had previously gotten some old pool noodles, but we had to find a way to make it balance, so we asked Meyer for some ping pong balls, which he gave us. One large problem that we didn’t exactly solve was when we were cutting boards for support, and they were barely held together by duct tape. Fortunately, it still stayed together for the Fair. In conclusion, we were able to persist through the problems. 

How it works 

The original RC car had it’s back wheels as the motors and the front wheels as steerers. We removed all of the tires, and attached paddles to the wheels. We then took off the front wheels, and added a rudder on the steering function of the RC car. We then took the facade off of the car, and sealed it completely with packaging tape. After that, we added a plank of balsa wood to the bottom of the car, and put ping pong balls and parts of pool noodles on the balsa wood (for floatation.) After that we added strawberry cartons to the back (As nets to catch plastic). And finally, we added pocketed paddles to propelling.

Extra Information 

Total Cost: About 15 to 20 dollars, we only spent money on the RC car previously, but we also used some of the school materials (duct tape, seal, craft sticks, and lots of water for testing) People that helped: Leo, Kian, Meyer, and of course, Ms. Hill. We cannot express our gratitude enough for these people. 

Links

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/save-earth-top-ten.htm

Wooden water bottle.

Our project was to make a wooden water bottle, to see if it was possible to make a world without plastic bottles. We started with two simple pieces of wood and built on by carving and materializing. We’ll have more details on it later. Our project went as we expected, we just wished that we had more time to build, because our bottle started to leak. We both care about climate change, so we thought we should start small and move on.

One of the challenges we overcame was: making the water bottle without containing any chemicals (Plastic water bottles contain bad chemicals) We needed sticky glue to glue the two pieces of wood together. We overcame this challenge by using wood glue which still has bad chemicals, though not as bad as other glue, which have a lot of bad chemicals.

In the process of learning, we learned how to carve (Chisel) meaning to shape. And the materials needed to make it drinkable. We had to decide carefully on the type of oil we would use to make our water bottle drinkable. We tried to go with simple and limited materials so that it would be easy to make than actual working machines. If we had more time, we would probably brainstorm more on how to put the two pieces of wood together. We had to use wood glue at the very end. Our project was more specific to make since we tried to use materials that were not used that common in this age. I would recommend to others that if you’re doing a project that you really do care about; go in a zone that would best fit you and your project will be outstanding.

Our estimate of money for this project was $10 for the purchase of an oil that would make sure that the water bottle would be drinkable. A link that we used that was very helpful to our project was a youtube video on the basics of carving and shaping.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-eLQEx2tDA

Turning Feed Bags into Clothing!

                                                  Turning Feed Bags Into Clothing!

Our project was turning feed bags from Ms. Hill’s farm into clothing! The inspiration for this project was fashion and raising awareness for trash on earth. The objective was to make people realize how much trash there is on beaches and other areas on earth, and how easy it is to reuse things. We wanted to make clothes and since the theme was sustainability, we decided to use already used bags instead of using new plastic bags. Overall the project was hard, the feed bags were pretty hard to sew because they were made out of tough material, but we managed to get everything done in time.

A challenge we faced as a group was figuring out the designs ( like how to take the right measurements) and how to sew the feed bags. We overcame the challenge of figuring out the designs by collaborating and working on them together. We got past the feed bag problem by having lots of help from each other. We had planned on making pants, a t-shirt, and a jacket and got all three of them done in time for Maker Fair. Another challenge we faced was how to make the material stick together and stay that way.

What we learned was that people aren’t aware enough of climate change, there is so much trash on earth, and feed bags are hard to sew. Also a another problem we faced, when you work together you can finish any hard project. If we had more time we would make more clothing and figure out how to make our measurements more accurate. If you would like to try this project, we recommend using a sewing pattern instead of free handing it with a tape measure and sharpie. Also, throughout the process, it’ll be hard, but you’ll make it!

The estimated amount of money we used on this project is around $15. We did end up buying elastic and not using it. Here is a link to the inspiration to the pants: https://www.bodenewyork.com/collections/pants/products/red-fox Here is the link to the inspiration for the shirt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxZnAydLJ8 (It’s a dress but it still helped) This is the inspiration for the jacket: https://www.recyclart.org/2013/03/upcycled-pet-food-bags/

Foosball Stick Project - Adam and Oliver B.

Adam E. Oliver B. 

5/30/2019

Foosball stick Project

We have always liked playing Foosball at recess and lunch; unfortunately one of the Foosball Tables’ defenders broke. This was upsetting because it made the game very unbalanced and one sided, ruining a lot of the fun. We decided to take on this project because it resonates to us. So we decided to fix the table by making a new defender stick. We knew we would mess up along the way but we didn’t care because no matter how much worse the new defenders were then the old ones they would still better than nothing.

We didn’t need to design the stick itself very much but we needed to decide and design what we could do with the constraints that we have, these being 5 hours and $25. We decided that the best materials we could use were 2 pieces of 2 by 4, a steel rod for $8(this was the only piece that wasn’t already supplied), and a steel pipe. We also had to think about how we would get the stick in to the table, we couldn’t do anything too big because then we wouldn’t be able to slide it into the table. With these in mind we ended up making it nearly identical to the other sticks. Our stick didn’t have the springs on the ends like the others and ours wasn’t as balanced but ours worked fine.

One challenge we faced over the course of the project was the rubber handle that Adam brought from home was about ¼ inch to thin. We didn’t know how to fix it and the best alternative would be duct tape which wouldn’t be nearly as fun. We ended up trying to drill into it and sand it down until we finally found a tool that was meant to be used for this type of problem, unfortunately it was too small but we used it anyways. It was a sort of sharp bladed metal rasp and we ended up widening the opening with and hammering in the rod the rest of the way to make sure it didn’t come off from lack of friction.



In the process of making the stick we learned how to overcome challenges, learned that things don’t have to be perfect to be functional, and learned that working in a partnership helps you get work done faster. We liked the challenges and triumphs that come with bigger projects like these. If we had more time we probably would re glue the characters (we messed up once) to hold them better then just taping them. And we would most likely figure out a better way to glue the stick into the table. I would say if your looking to have some fun while doing the project do what we did, design your own stick and make it from scratch, but if you're looking for optimal functionality you should probably get a manufactured replacement.

Foosball defender stick in place

Climate Change Awareness Movie

By Leo, Kian, and July

Our Maker Faire project was a movie about Climate Change. The point of it was to inform the people about what Climate Change is and the dangers of it. We knew it would be a great project because it is not too easy, movies are usually a great way of giving people information, and it teaches people that Climate Change is real.

While we were making our movie, one of the members of our group got cold feet about the project and kind of wanted to change it. He started getting less enthusiastic about the project, which affected how much we accomplished each time we were working. Once we got to the more exciting part of the movie, though, this person started working harder and we finished the movie on time.

We ran into some problems while making the movie. Some of these challenges included not wearing the same clothes every day, not having the rooms we planned to film in open, and convincing student who did not enjoy the movie that it was okay. If we had more time to work on the movie, we probably would have re filmed another science scene, because the camera didn’t show the full thing. If anyone else ever tries to make a movie, make sure you really want to do it, because it requires a lot of patience.

Our project did not cost any money. It did require us to materials such as an iPhone, scripts, Chromebooks, and costumes. We happened to have these items beforehand, which made it easier to make our project.

Climate Change Movie

Miny Greenhouse project- Helen,Kira, and Eliza

The Blog


Our project was about making a greenhouse. While making our greenhouse, we thought of using only recycled plastic in case of waste. We then started thinking about how it could fit in small places: Apartments, or houses that don’t have a place for a garden. If people could always grow their own plants, that would means that less people would buy plants from a supermarket, and therefore less CO2 would be released by the trucks transporting the food.
Our inspiration was that Kira has a garden at home called an Aerogarden. It has its own light and supplies its own water. It’s small and can fit on a table. When the plants were sprouts, she used little plastic domes that kept heat in and helped them grow. We knew that we couldn’t have a huge light and a pump for the plants. We liked the idea of making a greenhouse so people that live in small places -or they don’t have any space to grow plants- can still eat and/or grow their own food. We made a nursery Greenhouse to raise plants in small places.
One of our challenges was that one of our teammates was absent for most of our project. In the process of making our project we learned that it is not hard to make a greenhouse, yet you need to make sure it is covered so the heat has no way to escape.
If we had more time to make the greenhouse: We would use wood, make it a little bigger, and make sure that there were no cracks so that the greenhouse could be effective.
The advice I would give to someone else doing this project is make to make sure that there are no cracks. Because of cracks in our greenhouse, the sprouts hardly grew because they weren’t capturing the heat.
One of the good things about this project is that it hardly costs anything. All the supplies that we used, such as popsicle sticks, plastic bags, a cake container, a clear plastic egg carton, sprouts, and hot glue, were found at school or our homes.

The photo inspiration

6B-4b Repurposing the Worm Bin

        For our project, we repurposed the worm bin in the school garden. We wanted to do this because it will help the school garden. In seventh grade, we plan to refill the worm bin with soil and worms. This is important because we can reuse our compostable scraps, and it will help the school garden by creating healthy fertilizer. We repainted and cleaned the worm bin. The fresh coat of paint makes it more approachable. One challenge was that we are both very afraid of spiders, and the worm bin had basically become a spider bin.

        Our first priority was to clean the worm bin out. It was filled with old hay and paper, which was the old bedding. After we cleaned out all the bedding, we got rid of all the critters and cleaned it. Then, we painted it green. We hope this will help the school by giving the garden fresh soil.


       Before                                  After

DIY stylish crayon lipstick

DIY CRAYON LIPSTICK

Hey there, for our maker fair, we made crayola lipstick. We used coconut oil, vegetable oil and crayola crayons, we mostly used darker colors because they would show up better. We decided to do this project because we really liked the idea of organic eyeshadow, but could not find any organic mica powder..etc the process was also too easy, then we had the idea to make crayola lipstick (with ms Hills help ;)

We had a few problems with this recipe. Number one was that a lot of the pigment came out great (blue, red, purple…). We did not always have the best colors for lips, sometimes it did not totally show up (blue, green..etc). So we found that using darker colors would work better, but you can't make colors like nudes or pinks. Our second problem was that after we melted the crayons with the oils we had to pour it into the mold fast or it would harden and we would have to do it over again.




It took a lot of work to clean. And if we knew that it would take a lot of time, and patience then we would not have stressed as much as we did because of how much work it took to clean everything. Also take your time. When we first started we had an incident where we were so excited to start but also scared because the water was boiling and this was all of our first times working with the hot plate so we didn't know how to use it. We ended up dropping the bowl into the boiling hot water which really hurt. We also learned that glass doesn't mix well with hot and cold. We first started the lipstick making process with a big bowl. Then we all figured out that we could make more Lipstick colors if we use separate glass cups. (Obviously it took a while to clean) so instead of cleaning it with hot water we decided to clean it with cold water. Due to the reaction of hot water and cold water mixing together the cup bottoms popping off because of all the pressure.


We would make more lipstick because it actually was getting famous during maker faire. if we had more time we would probably make more colors and test out different amounts of ingredients to see how the pigment of them comes out Because a lot of our colors were the same texture so we wanna dig deeper in the subject. We also wish that we could have used JUST crayola crayons. But because our art room has everything and we use everything other than crayons for our projects; there for our art room doesn't need crayons but luckily we had some unlabeled crayons (THAT ARENT CRAYOLA; DON'T DRAG ME)


The price of doing this varies, because we used old crayons from our school art studio. People could buy a huge new pack, which would cost ($3.56 from walmart), coconut oil (would cost from 6-19 from walmart), vegetable oil (would cost from $3-$6 from walmart). Since we did not have a stove at school, we used a hot plate that costs $50 -$100 from amazon.


https://www.rookiemag.com/2013/10/diy-crayon-lipstick/

Methane Harvester

Dylan S. 6B

Methane is one of the worst greenhouse gasses commonly being produced, so my project was to try to create a design that would harvest methane to grow plants.
I was inspired when I discovered that if you burn methane, it produces water or water vapor, and carbon dioxide. I immediately noticed that along with sunlight, those two are the main components needed to make plants.

A challenge I faced when creating a design for a methane harvester was the quantity of research necessary for the ability to accurately determine the proper amount of material I should be expecting. I had to do extensive studying into the properties of plants, cows, and various gasses. I ran out of time in the end, and was forced to complete the drawing at my house, but I am happy with the end result.

The next step would be building a small model of the barn. An approximate cost per year would be about 9,000 dollars for the 100 cows and 25,000 dollars for the greenhouse. Along with other costs, the price of a 100 cow greenhouse could be about 35,000 dollars. While this amount of money might be a problem for some, greenhouse gas emissions are more of a problem if not handled properly and quickly.

Site https://animalsmart.org/species/cattle/what-do-beef-cattle-eat-

PVC Pipe Chicken Feeder

PVC Pipe Chicken Feeder

By: Aliana G.

6B

As a member of Chicken Crew, I first hand have experienced the difficulties of feeding the chickens. The feeder we are currently using is broken and not equipped for the amounts of rain. Large amounts of feed were being wasted, and we were going through food very fast. For my Maker Faire project I decided to design and create my own feeder, that would make managing feeding time a little easier.  

I chose PVC pipe as my main building material because it was sturdy, lightweight, easy to work with, and weather proof. I initially had planned to only have one feeder instead of three, but after changing my design and receiving my materials, I decided to go through with my ending design.

One challenge I had to overcome when making my project was finding a reliable cap, so that the food wouldn't fall out of the feeder as soon as it was put in. Because the type of PVC I chose was very wide I couldn't find any caps that would fit. I experimented with wood, bricks, and hard plastic to find the best solution. In the end although it did not look very attractive I found that yogurt containers worked the best. I learned that you really had to plan ahead, and when planning make sure that you’ve already figured out all the details about your design.

A piece of advice I would give people trying to recreate this project is do what’s best for you, and the purpose of your project. It doesn't matter is there are a lot of nice designs, what matters is that the design you are sticking with and choosing as you final design is functional, and practical for the intended purpose of your project.

I got most of my materials used from Urban Our and it roughly cost about $15 (not including the wood that was already at school) but if you wanted everything new it would cost around $40.

Sources I used for inspiration:

https://www.hobbyfarms.com/the-no-mess-chicken-feeding-watering-system/

https://www.instructables.com/id/PVC-Chicken-Feeder-1/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/make-your-own-no-waste-5-gallon-25-feed-bu      cket-feeder-for-about-3.834227/

Shampoo bottle phone case

Youtube Video on how to make a phone case

     In my project for Maker Faire I tried to create phone cases using old shampoo bottles. My inspiration for this project was to reuse plastic to create plastic pollution. In the beginning of my project I hit a roadblock with what I was going to do for Maker Faire, then I thought about everyday objects I use that I could recreate for the environment.
I started by cutting out flat sheets of plastic off the shampoo bottles. Then I traced a phone on 2-3 pieces of cardboard, I also traced a phone case on the plastic but a few centimeters larger than the phone. This is because the next step is to heat the plastic with the cardboard model in the middle then mold the edges to the cardboard model.
Along the process I ran into many problems, during the first weeks I had a shortage of shampoo bottles which slowed my progress. Another problem I ran into was the fact that not all the plastics are the same meaning that certain plastic would burn faster and others don't burn as fast making the molding process very difficult. I tired lots of different burning tools like candles,lighters and candle lighters but they either burned the plastic or slightly heat the plastic so I didn't succeed in completing my project.
I learned that not all shampoo bottles have the same kind of plastic and that keeping the lighter at different distances to the plastic makes a huge impact. If I had more time to work on my project I would have used a easier to use material or done more research on how to mold plastic. If someone else tried to make this project I would recommend having more shampoo bottles to use ahead of time.

Food Storage Done Another Way: Replicating Plastic Clamshells Using Recycled Paper By Miles Reichmann and Julia Fromson-Mayhew 6B-13

While searching for ideas for a Maker project, we started to think about the food industry, specifically what we saw in grocery stores. We noticed how many things are kept in plastic clamshell containers, even things that don’t need to be, like cucumbers. We asked our parents about why they thought things were packaged this way and they said they thought it was because of how easy they are: they are stackable and protective. We knew that these containers were plastic, but they didn’t need to be. We wanted to create a new way to package these foods, without losing the convenience of the clamshell.  We thought about alternatives to plastic, and paper immediately came to mind. We decided to replicate the clamshell containers we saw in the stores, but with recycled paper.

Our Maker Faire Booth

The first step in our design process was figuring out our problem, which was how much plastic is used in the food industry. We then had to identify our criteria and constraints.  Our project had to be under $25, so we decided to use common household items like egg carton containers and paper from the school recycling. Like all the other groups, we had a limited amount of class periods allotted to working on our project.

We composed two different prototypes for this project. The first was made of shredded egg cartons mixed with wheat paste, and the second, paper blended with warm water.  We did not get a chance to revise these very much: the model with the wheat paste dried and worked properly, while the other did not. (See “challenge” below.)

Putting it on the screen

One challenge that we encountered in our process was that the paper wouldn’t dry.  One of our models was made of paper pulp applied to the inside of a plastic clamshell container, brought in from home.  The problem was that the water would drain out of the paper and get stuck in the bottom of the container. Since it was plastic, there was no drainage, and the water was re-absorbed by the paper pulp.  We called this “The Plastic Effect.” There was another group who was also making paper, and theirs was drying on cardboard. When we tried putting scraps of paper into the clamshell as a liner, it only made the problem worse.  Our solution to this problem was to use different materials. Instead of using water in the paper pulp, we shredded egg cartons and mixed it them with wheat paste. This was able to dry better because the wheat paste was less liquidy and left behind more of a substance when it dried.

Our project was completely free, because we only used things that were already available to us. We brought clamshells and egg cartons in from home, and raided the school recyclings for the paper scraps. The only thing that might be an issue if you try this at home is the paper screen: we already had one at school. You can easily make one by stretching wire mesh across a picture frame or even just using an old window screen. A few links that helped us were Making Your Own Paper and Egg Carton Paper-Making.

First Prototype

We learned a lot in this process. We learned about different ways to keep paper together and different forms of recycling. We also figured out a few things about what makes plastic effective. For example, in “The Plastic Effect,” the plastic is meant to be trapping liquid, which is what makes it effective for things like milk cartons and water bottles. By figuring this out, we were able to find ways to make paper more effective, even if we weren’t able to execute them in the time given. If we had more time, we would have liked to try to mass-produce our model and make it more widely available to stores. We also would have liked to try to create models of some of the things that would have made it more effective.

Bottles to Broken Cups Alex B., Jeremy T., Oliver Hi. 6B

Bottles to Broken Cups

Alex B., Jeremy T., Oliver Hi.

6B

Price

Basic setup (for method #1) can cost about $20-$40: this should include:

One tabletop glass-cutter

One pair of gloves

Sandpaper

One handheld glass-cutter (sometimes)

A few rubber bands (sometimes)

You may also need to buy some cutting oil (about ten dollars for a four oz bottle) and some candlesticks about $1 per candle

Basic setup (for method #2)

Acetone $5-$10 about 10oz

Yarn or string $2-$10

Table top bottle cutter $20-$40 (not necessary but recommended)

A bin to fill with water for safety and to catch the broken glass

Sand paper

Our Maker Faire was taking bottles and trying to turn them into cups/glasses. Unfortunately most of them broke, and we weren’t able to drink out of them. Our inspiration was the fact that recycling glass is extremely expensive. Luckily Oliver had a bottle cutting kit because his mom likes to work with glass. We had to find bottles first, so we sent out an email. We asked everybody to, if they have old glass bottles, to donate them to us. Surprisingly we thought we were going to get none but we got a lot of them. Since we had such little time, we weren’t able to use all of them.



We looked at a couple of videos on the web that showed us some strategies for cutting the bottles. There were some ways that took longer than others and also some that were really dangerous. The first strategy that we used was the most simple, we started with taking a bottle, making a cut with the glass-cutter, holding the bottle over a candle, and then pouring ice water on the cut. The second strategy was using acetone. We cut the bottle, and it involved fire. Then we took a string dumped it in acetone, and wrapped it around the bottle at least three times. We then lit the string with a lighter and once it went out we poured some ice water onto the glass bottle(over a tub of water). If lucky we would have a good enough cup to sand down, unfortunately none of the cups were sanded down enough for someone to drink out of it safely.If you decide to do this at home, make sure you have all the necessary materials, also, most methods you will find on the web will also require safety goggles. If your very first bottle doesn’t break super cleanly, don’t get frustrated, only a few bottles that you try will break cleanly.

(1) How to Cut Glass Bottles | 3 ways to do it - YouTube

Homemade organic mason jar ice cream

          6B- Ice Cream in a Mason Jar 

          By Sadie Burroughs and Amaya Heard

At the beginning of this project, we knew we wanted to make a sweet. Ice cream sounded like a fun, easy dessert that we both wanted to try making. We both knew that the summer was coming which inspired us to make something cold and sweet, like ice cream. At first, we wanted to make an ice cream machine out of cardboard, which would be our main focus. Ms. Hill said that it would be better to focus on the ice cream rather than the machine, so we decided to just make the ice cream instead. We also decided to make the ice cream in mason jars as a substitute for plastic bags. Replacing plastic bags with mason jars helps reduce plastic usage. We were going to make one ice cream vegan, and the other normal. We wanted to make the vegan ice cream so we were not using animal products. Many times, animals are not treated humanely, and we wanted to not support those businesses. We also thought that by making your own ice cream, it wouldn't cost as much as buying ice cream from a store. We estimated that the price for the ingredients was about $5-10. If we made our own ice cream, we would not be spending money on store bought ice cream in wasteful plastic.

We started off thinking we wanted to make vegan and non vegan ice cream. The ice creams would be flavored vanilla and strawberry. Sadie brought the ingredients which included heavy cream, coconut milk, and sprinkles. Black Pine Circle had sugar, vanilla extract, and mason jars. When we were trying to make the vegan ice cream, we made a mistake by only using the coconut cream and not the coconut milk. This caused it to freeze in an iceball. On the other hand, the heavy cream in the normal ice cream worked very well. We decided to make another vegan ice cream with the coconut cream and the coconut milk, but it was not thick enough. We forgot all about the strawberry ice cream, so we decided to make only vanilla. We found chocolate syrup in the fridge and decided to put chocolate in the ice cream. We tried to make vegan ice cream once more with soy milk, but it did not work out and wasn't as thick as the heavy cream ice cream, and tasted very bad. We made the ice cream by shaking all the ingredients together in a mason jar, and after five minutes, it was just like whipped cream. Then we put it in the freezer for three hours. After this, it was the consistency of normal ice cream.

I think that our project worked really well, but there are a few things that could have made it better. At first, we wanted to make vegan ice cream, but this did not work because we couldn't use heavy cream, which was a main ingredient. The alternatives did not work. An experiment I want to try in the future, is to get vegan whipped cream and put it in the freezer and see if it would turn out like the non vegan ice cream. Next time we want to make some ice cream that is vegan, maybe we should look up a good vegan recipe, instead on changing a non vegan recipe. The lesson that we learned is when you are making a new food, always make sure that you are following the recipe. Our advice for sixth graders doing this project is to make sure they have a solid plan, and do a test experiment before the final draft.




Link to recipe https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a53547/mason-jar-ice-cream-recipe/

Homemade Organic Dog Treats - Sophia A. and Elliot C.

          At first, we didn't know what to make for our Maker Project. We originally wanted to make a candy machine, but we found out we couldn't do that because it didn’t help the earth in any way. Then we decided to move on to a dog feeder because we know how lazy people are when it comes to feeding their dogs, but we found out that we couldn’t do that either. We finally made up our minds and decided to make healthy organic dog treats. We wanted to make sure that dogs had the healthiest option for their treats. Some dog treats are bad for dogs and have chemicals that can harm them, but our dog treats are fully organic and won't harm the animals. Something challenging was that we would find recipes but then see that they weren't very healthy, so we had to keep searching.     
           We planned a day where we would bake our first batch of dog treats. We baked our first batch on Saturday at Elliot's house. They were a success! My dog ate three cookies. We felt successful and accomplished. We had a little trouble because Elliot was sick, so Sophia made the dough on Tuesday without Elliot, then Elliot came back on Thursday and we baked the treats. The next day it was already the Maker Faire! That morning we had two periods to finish up, in that time we made our glaze and glazed one batch of treats. We made two batches of dog treats. We made Cranberry Coconut dog treats and Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog treats. We used Sun butter because of the allergy of someone at our school. 
          Something we learned is that, sometimes you have to edit the recipe to make them better. For the first batch of dog treats, we added 1 extra egg, 1 tbsp more almond flour, 1 tbsp more coconut flour, and 1 tbsp more coconut oil. Something else that we learned is that not all things turn out how you want them to, for example the Peanut butter Pumpkin dog treats didn't taste like we wanted them to, even though the dogs liked them.
          Even though the dog treats were a huge success and even people liked eating them, we would make them better by making them even more healthy. We could not use bacon grease next time because it has fat, we would maybe eliminate or use less peanut butter. Our project had a overall cost of $30. If you are thinking of making this make sure to follow your instincts, example: not following the whole recipe exactly. We thought that this project was really fun and enjoyed working together.

Recipes:
https://thelovelylife.org/2019/02/04/cranberry-hearts/
https://pinchofyum.com/homemade-dog-treats

6B-4a Easy Gardening? Let's Get Cracking: Egg Shell seed starters. August and Charley

          We wanted to do something that involved gardening using everyday stuff. Some people buy plastic trays to start their seeds and then just throw the plastic away so we wanted to find a way to make compostable or reusable seed starters. At first we wanted to turn egg cartons into seed starters, but we realized it wouldn’t work. We did some research and decided to make seed starters out of eggshells instead. Using eggshells as seed starters is a good idea, because once the plants are ready to be re-planted, you can plant the eggshell with the plant. The eggshells decompose in the soil, releasing nutrients that the plant can use to grow faster. The project costed us nothing.

        Over the weekend, we ate a lot of eggs so we could have shells to work with on Monday. When we got back to school, we washed the shells, and poked holes in the bottom for drainage. Then we picked out our seeds, which were parsley and thyme, and planted them. We had 11 shells to use. We put the carton on a windowsill and waited for them to grow. But we came across a problem: the lid of the carton kept on falling down over the eggs. So we took two popsicle sticks and taped them to the bottom and top of each of the sides of the carton to keep the lid up. The solution worked perfectly.

        Throughout the process we learned a lot about gardening and improved on our egg cracking skills. If somebody else was doing the process we’d definitely recommend being really careful when you crack the eggs. If you crack them to high, they’re hard to put soil into and their hard to water, and if you crack them too low, soil falls out and you can’t use them. We wish we could’ve planted more kinds of plants, but we didn’t have the seeds and shells to do so.
Here is a link that helped us out a lot with our project: https://www.southernliving.com/garden/flowers/how-to-start-seeds-in-eggshells-video

Pop Tab Jewelry, Nella S.

Pop Tab Jewelry, Nella S. 6B

For the 2019 Maker Faire I decided to use recycled pop tabs to make jewelry. I really like working with metal and making jewelry and I recently found out that only 9% of the materials we recycle don’t actually get recycled! It’s only thrown into the landfill like regular trash. I decided to choose one recyclable material I noticed we used a lot. At first, I wanted to make jewelry out of recycled paper. But I couldn’t manipulate the paper they way I wanted to. So later I chose pop tabs and started to work with them to turn them into jewelry. Lots of people drink sodas and recycle them or throw them away. But, they can be turned into beautiful pieces of jewelry you can wear comfortably. So from there I started developing the best way to manipulate the pop tabs.

I went through many ideas and designs starting with paper quilling (the rolling and gluing of paper to make designs) than using wire to connect the pop tabs, but I finally decided on using ribbon and threading it through the pop tabs. I also used wire cutters to cut through the pop tabs and connect them but that method caused the pop tabs to become pokey so I only used it for earrings. One challenge I had to overcome was how to make the pop tab jewelry comfortable to wear. As I mentioned before directly linking the pop tabs using wire cutters caused it to become scratchy and almost painful to wear. I had to come up with another solution fast. And so I decided to use the ribbon and it made them much more stylish and comfortable to wear! I loved the look of the colorful ribbon and it seemed like everybody else did too!

To make the ribbon pop tab jewelry take a pop tab and thread the ribbon through the holes and over the middle bar. Than loop more pop tabs on to the same ribbon and continue this process until you have reached your desired length. To connect the ends just tie them together around your wrist, ankle, or neck. To make the earrings I cut through the two pop ends of the pop tabs and linked them together into fun shapes! This project was so much fun and I really recommend it for a boring rainy day weekend or any other time you need a fun craft.



I used these Pinterest pages for inspiration:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169724105/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169698865/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169698837/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460166017059/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460165619051/

Simple Accessible Water Filter: DIY

Simple Accessible Water Filter

      I wanted to solve a problem that would both benefit humans and the environment, so I addressed the issue of polluted and unsafe drinking water. I know that many people in the world don’t have access to clean drinking water or a good water filter. My goal was to design an easy, inexpensive, functional product that can turn dirty water into safe drinking water so that it could be remade and reused on a global scale. But first, as you always have to do, I started small.

      I started by researching what makes a good water filter. What I found was surprising to me. I didn’t realize how easy and inexpensive this would be. Most of the resources that I used to build this, I didn’t even need to buy, (it only cost about $10-15, but I had extras of all the materials, so it could be made three or four times for the same price) and it is all contained in a small plastic water bottle. Here’s how the initial design was supposed to work. Firstly, it goes through gravel, which takes out larger things, such as leaves or insects. Then the sand gets rid of smaller particles, like dirt or algae. The activated charcoal gets rid of very fine particles and chemicals through chemical absorption. Finally, the cotton balls at the bottom strain out the residue left by the other things. So I started with that design.

   
      There were more than a few problems with my first design. First of all, it didn’t work. Dirty water going in only got dirtier as it came out. Also, the top had been cut off to put the stuff in, but if it tipped over, everything would easily spill out. And lastly, the water going in started to flood it and move things around. So I went back to the drawing board. I decided it was probably the charcoal that got the water dirtier, so I added more cotton balls at the end, but they started falling out. To fix that problem, I put the cap back onto the water bottle with a tiny hole so the water could drip out. Then, I put a coffee filter at the top, just for a bit of extra straining. Finally, to address the issue of things falling out, and the issue of flooding, I poked a small hole in a yogurt cup and attached it to the top. That meant there was something to block things from falling out, and it had a constant, slower inflow into the filter so it wouldn’t get overwhelmed.

      I tested it again by mixing dirt with water and pouring it into the filter, and it surprised me. After about 20 seconds of waiting, a constant drip of clean water came out of the bottom. It looked clean enough, so I decided to have a sip. It tasted a bit earthy, but pretty fresh and good. I think if it keeps being revised and getting better, it can be made to make water clean enough to drink safely. If you do this, keep experimenting, and try to get this project to completely work!

Scribble bot Ari M and Noah K

Our maker faire project was making a scribble bot. A scribble bot is a cup with markers on the bottom, and a motor on the top to make it spin. It draws stuff in circles, with different colors. We made the scribble bot because it’s a fun project and it’s cool to see how it draws. We can vary the size and shape of it and see how it affects the drawings.

How we found out about this project was that one of us looked up “cool maker faire projects” and after a while, we came upon this project. This project drew our eye because we’ve seen this before and we thought that it was really cool. We thought it would be way more complicated than it actually was.

We learned that if the first design for a project doesn’t work, then you might need to tweak it. For example, our wires weren’t sticking to the motor, so it kept stopping. We then used tin foil to help the wires stick. If we had more time, we would probably hook up the motor to an arduino, so we could give it commands. Some advice for doing this project is to align the markers so that the scribble bot isn’t off balance.

We didn’t spend any money on our project, because we just used materials that we had or that the school had. But the estimated cost of our project is about $10.

One of our challenges was getting a can to use, so we decided to use a cup instead. It didn’t work as well, because it was less sturdy, but it got the job done.

https://www.science-sparks.com/how-to-make-a-scribble-bot/

Climate Change Board Game: Terrafirma - Augie, Nate, and Eli

Maker Faire Blog Post about “Terrafirma"

By: Eli Mckoy Beiser, Augie Nice, and Nate Sommer

Our Maker Faire project was called Terrafirma. It was a board game where you would try to run a civilization. You had to make sure your civilians had food, water, and energy everyday. you had to build farms, water purifiers, and factories to provide those things. For everyday your civilians had these things, you got a point. Now for the hard part, getting these things for your civilians required you to put Co2 into your civilization’s atmosphere, we would add 10 Co2 to your atmosphere for every farm, water purifier, and factory you had per day. Once you added 400 Co2 to the atmosphere, your civilization would come to an end. So your goal as the player was to get as far as you could while keeping your civilians alive. The objective of our project was to make people more aware of how hard it is to provide people with their needs, while also balancing the trouble of climate change. Our project has very specific examples, and there are more problems you will encounter in running a civilization. One thing we thought was that people thought we should just get rid of fossil fuels, but those are how tons of people get energy. So our objective was not to tell people that fossil fuels are good and everyone should use them, but that thoughts saying to just get rid of fossil fuels should be given a better solution with more thought, we’re letting people know that solving climate change is a bit more complex than some people think. We were inspired to do this project because we have been talking about climate change a lot in school, whether it be a movie about it, or a science project about it, we talked about it a lot. This made us think more about that problem and we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make people more aware. We only had two weeks to make this project so we had to work quickly while still making people aware of the complexity in climate change. In this time we think we still managed to make a fun game that still communicated the message we trying to get across.

The biggest challenge throughout the process of making this game was figuring out what our numbers would be, and how they would work. For example what number of Co2 would they have to have for their civilization to end. We overcame this by making a plan one day, making sure it worked, and then just changing things that didn’t work. For around 2 days we were testing numbers with people in the class to see what did not work for us. In fact, on the day of the faire we had to change a few numbers to make sure everything worked smoothly. In the end all our numbers worked fine, but it took awhile to find the numbers that worked.

So, Terrafirma was full of ups and downs. However, we learned a lot in the process: How to make the numbers work so that it was possible to play the game, how to adapt our original idea to fit constraints and problems that came up during our work process, and how to stick with a project even when it starts to look hopeless. But when we were done, we still felt like there was so much more that we could have done. For example, if we had more time, we would have made the game more pleasing to the eye, as we kind of had to rush the cutting and gluing of the buildings, they were made of cardboard which made it harder to look perfect. We also would have added more variables so there were more than one strategy to play. However, if you want to make a climate change board game, there are some things that we would suggest. First, plan everything! We thought that things would fall into place as we worked, but this was not the case. In addition, don’t rush the making of the game itself. It is very important that it looks polished so that people want to come and play your game. Lastly, play test as much as possible. The more you play test, the more likely it is that you will catch errors and make the game more fun to play and less hard to run.

In our project we used all school resources: paint and markers from the art room, cardboard and cardboard scissors from the maker room, hot glue from the science room, wood from Ms. Hills farm. So we spent no extra money on our project.

Sources:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/carbon-dioxide-emissions-rise-to-24-million-pounds-per-second/