Once upon a Zoom meeting, a WMSI intern named Jake began showing off his collection of astronaut and space themed tee shirts from across the decades. Being my first remote internship check-in, I immediately decided that these interns were my type of people! Collective internship meetings have been running semiweekly by WMSI Associate Director Jeremy Knowlton since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency. While Jake’s intern project is not gathering the most obscure tee shirts that he can, it does highlight how these check-ins can be a fun and communal outlet of creativity.

Above: Jake showing off his fantastic collection of NASA shirts

The WMSI interns normally spend 1-3 hours a week at our maker space for their internships, but they work sporadically throughout the week. Since interns are no longer able to use our maker space during this emergency, an interesting development has occurred: they now have more opportunity to collaborate with one another through Zoom. And as shown through Jake’s experience above, these meetings have also provided a space to be silly and catch-up on how everyone is doing.

Like many of the gears that run WMSI, intern projects continue to keep moving forward, thanks to the dedication and perseverance of of these talented and kind-hearted high school students. Their work continues to positively impact students all around the North Country and beyond. Here is a quick highlight reel of what they have been up to these past few weeks…

Maddie had been working on designing lasercut tree branches for the beams around WMSI. Now, she’s pivoted to create STEM design videos for students in quarantine who no longer have access to WMSI makerspace programs. Maddie has been compiling a list of different WMSI, 5 Minute Classroom video ideas and has begun to set up her “remote studio”. Her first video (filmed pre-quarantine during the fall) is shown to the left! Maddie is now working remotely to create a 5 Minute Classroom video showing students how to design boats with household materials.

Joe has been designing an interactive WMSI-saurus to grace our maker space! Inspired by some of the exhibits at the Museum of Science, Joe wanted to make the WMSI-saurus interactive, so that when students walk by the display they are greeted by a roar and the opening and closing of jaws. In order to accomplish this, Joe 3D printed jaws, designed a motorized “fishing reel” design, allowing the jaws to open and close. Remotely, Joe added these elements to a sheet of plywood. His design is now going through its final testing. Joe will soon be transitioning to 3D printing tools for WMSI from the safety of his room.

Jake explaining his programming during the intern group meeting

Jake has been working with Tufts University to test and design instructions for how to get the most out of LEGO Education’s new robotics kit, the “Spike Prime” (I know, it sounds like the coolest Transformer ever). The goal of these instructions is to teach students how to:

Program the device on Python
Solder a camera onto the device for more advanced artificial intelligence tests
Use a force sensor as an input on the device
And much more!

Jake is also using his new Spike Prime skills to design new lessons that he and WMSI can use with students post-quarantine.

Coltrane quickly shifted from designing 3D prints for stop motion animation cameras at the WMSI Makerspace to designing Scratch lessons for students to enjoy from home. Coltrane harnessed his previous, expansive knowledge of Scratch to create a “nature unit” for telling stories on Scratch. This creative unit has included guide on “Makin’ it rain!”, birds flying, worms doing the… worm, and much more! To the right is one example. Through it all, Coltrane has learned new graphic design skills on a program called Lucidpress. He has gotten feedback from our other interns on his lessons, allowing him to better iterate on his designs.

“Makin’ it rain!” One of Coltrane’s 1 page lessons

Emma is in the final stretch of her WMSIcal design for our stairway mural at our makerspace. Emma’s goal was to capture the spirit of all of our programs in the mural. In order to do this, she harnessed images and logos from camps, curriculum documents, activities, and our Mobile STEM Lab. She drew up the design using a mix of Inkscape and Onshape. Throughout this process, she had to face many (MANY) technical challenges but remained perseverant through it all. When quarantine hit, we sterilized a laptop and vinyl cutter and sent them home with Emma. From the safety of her home, Emmas has been completing her vinyl cuts of the mural. She has presented her design to the other interns and has incorporated their critiques and ideas into her final product.

The finished mural! Just needs to be cut out on vinyl