Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts
K-12
The VW eLab at CSLA is a space where K–12 creators and collaborators turn ideas into finished products. Using 3D printers, laser and vinyl cutters, embroidery and CNC machines, screen printers, and woodshop tools, students follow the design process to imagine, prototype, iterate, and collaborate on meaningful projects for themselves, their school, and their community.
Lab description
Grade Levels:
VW eLab Specialist
Tony Ochoa, Alex Williams, and Jonathan Johnson
Jonathan Johnson brings 20 years of teaching and a passion for personal projects to the lab. Alex Williams turns 15 years in radio into engaging student learning. Tony Ochoa brings five years of teaching and over eight in film, design, set production, photography, and video editing to inspire young artists and develop their unique craft.
Impact
In just five weeks with a brand new instructional team, CSLA’s VW eLab is giving students across grade levels opportunities to turn ideas into useful creations. Through hands-on work with 3D printers, CAD and other modeling software, cameras, robotics, and electrical components, students are beginning to connect classroom learning with practical problem-solving. This impact is felt in many ways. Students and teachers are using lab tools to create requested items like a fix for a broken platform, or simple token reward a for middle school mash-up celebration, connecting design work to real needs within our school. Students are also developing prototypes in CAD and other 3D modeling programs, exploring how an idea becomes a digital design and then a physical object, and finally something tangible that they can use or gift to others. Work with robotics and electrical wiring provides another opportunity to explore how components fit together and how technology functions. Although our team is just getting started, these experiences are laying a foundation for creativity, technical skills, and purposeful learning. Our goal is for students to see themselves as capable designers and problem-solvers whose ideas can contribute to their school community and beyond.
Project Highlights
Recent projects in CSLA’s VW eLab connect digital design with practical applications, creative expression, ideation, prototyping and service to our school community. Students are creating 3D models of houses and developing 3D-printed keychain prototypes. These projects give students practice using modeling software, working with dimensions, and determining how individual shapes combine to form a complete design. Keychain prototypes also help students explore the process of turning a digital model into a usable physical object as well as iterate when problems with their designs arise. Students are designing fall decorations as gifts and creating mechanical parts for personal computers. These projects give their work a specific purpose and audience. Through them, students practice making design choices based on how an item will look, fit, and function as well as communicating with their audience. The eLab is also supporting classroom needs. Teachers are creating eagle tokens for student rewards and using 3D design to develop repairs for broken tools. These projects demonstrate how the lab can provide customized solutions to everyday problems within our school. Together, these projects give students opportunities to apply measurement, creativity, and problem-solving while learning how digital design and fabrication can produce useful results.
