Check out the final cornhole boards (mini-cornhole boards, actually, which we’re donating to the elementary school math classes) – their design concepts originated with the knot drawings our students did, and evolved into lovely graphic representations of students’ individual visions. The boards themselves were also built by students in their first woodshop project, using the chop saw, table saw, router, sander, biscuit joiner, and other hand tools.

As our cornhole board project was coming to an end, we did a quick “blitz” project in order to become more familiar with laser cutting and rapid prototyping. We used the laser cutter to precisely etch the cornhole graphic designs out of tape, so that we could peel back and paint color fields with precision, so our students had begun to understand how the laser cutter can etch and slice from 2-d design files.

The quick project, which Matt wrote as a lesson plan titled “Captain (P)Card,” in a Star Trek reference that only one student knew, asked students to design an individual business card that took advantage of the laser cutter’s technology. The card could fold, expand, have an interesting form, have text punched through or etched; the usual flat constraints of a traditional card did not apply. The business card became a 3-d object where depth of text and even the chipboard material itself became a design possibility.

Download the Captain (P)Card business card design lesson plan here >>

The activity was also an exercise in branding, as students had to think through their own identity, how to represent it, and what information to put forth. A few examples are below, including Peter’s card, which celebrates his family’s poultry farm with a pick-up truck on drumstick wheels, and Keisha’s, which mimics the interface of a search engine, recalling her information when “most awesome person ever” is entered in the search box. Raleigh’s utilized the etching function of the laser cutter to score a large triangle into four smaller triangles that could fold into a box. Leanna’s was inspired by paper dolls, each figure printed with specific information. The solutions were silly, unique, and fun, and not so much an exercise in design development but personal expression with a particular tool.

Come one, come all!

You are invited to join us on Tuesday, February 21st, from 5-7pm at the Studio H shop/classroom/barn to meet our students, hear about the Studio H program, and to check out the beautifully designed and executed mini-Cornhole boards produced by students.

The boards (shown above), were inspired by the original drawings of knots done by students during their first week of Studio H. The designs were produced using hand-sketching techniques, Adobe Illustrator, our laser cutter, and of course, the hands of students which painstakingly painted their lovely designs onto the boards.

The board sets will be given to teachers of the four elementary schools in Bertie County, who will use them within their math classes to teach basic applied arithmetic.

Food and drink will be provided at the open house – please come down to meet us and see our students’ work!

Map to our Studio H location is shown below – get directions via Google Maps here:

View Studio H woodshop/metalshop in a larger map

After we had finished the Adobe Illustrator files of the cornhole board graphics and test-printed them on the laser cutter, our students were ready to go full-scale, real-deal. In order to produce the precise fields of color in paint on the boards, we used the laser cutter to slice a layer of painter’s tape which was placed on top of each board. By covering the boards with tape, and then slicing the designs’ lines out, we could peel back individual pieces of tape that corresponded to all the fields of one color. For example, the fully taped board could be laser cut, then a student could peel off all the areas to be green, and paint just those areas without paint seeping into the non-green areas. Then they could peel off the next color, then the next.

For some students, a second round of taping was helpful, if they had intricate details where two colors met, and it was too hard to hand-paint the border. This particular part of the project required a steady hand, patience, and attention to detail when peeling off corresponding tape areas. However, last year, we didn’t have a laser cutter and our students hand sliced their designs. So by comparison, our students this year have a far more efficient, and precise, process.

Most students were able to complete the full-scale production of their design in a few days, and as production progressed, it became clear to students the full thread of the project’s required skillset, from abstract conceptualization to development, to use of technology to produce precise drawings, to full-scale production and painting. To top it off, each student attached the board’s legs and painted the back. The boards will be paired assigned color scheme, and given as a set, with beanbags, to each of the elementary schools, where math teachers in particular have expressed interest in using them to teach basic arithmetic (the scoring system for Cornhole is similar to horseshoes, where players earn the net points scored in each round). Below, Leanna talks about the concept for her board and how she worked to bring it to life with precision and care.

With the Cornhole project now complete, our students have a good foundation upon which to build more design and production skills. The boards introduced students to woodshop production, Adobe Illustrator, design conceptualization and development, the laser cutter, and production techniques. We will be hosting an Open House for students, their parents, teachers, and community to come and see the boards, get to know our students, and learn more about what we have planned for the rest of the semester.

Last week, it was “off to the races” on our Mini-Cornhole boards, using the knot drawings to inspire graphics for the student-built wooden boards. Now that the graphics are complete (see Leanna’s above), we’ve been spending this week putting those designs into Adobe Illustrator, an industry tool that will allow us not only to accurately depict the graphics, but export the files to the laser cutter to slice the designs out of tape so that we can paint each board precisely.

Illustrator is not an easy piece of software to learn in a day – it is incredibly robust, and while very user-friendly, is new territory for our students and took some finessing to learn how to accurately draw lines using the pen tool, toggles, and two different selection tools. But like anything else we learn in Studio H, practice is the name of the game, and most students picked up the basic tools very quickly, enough to accurately produce their design. For the purposes of the laser cutter, students only needed to draw strokes, not fill, as the laser cutter will only follow strokes (lines) of a particular width for cutting.

Once the Illustrator drawings were checked and ready to go, we took them to the laser cutter and cut tests on cardboard. These tests are meant merely to inspect the cut lines to ensure that when we cut the graphics into the tape on the boards, there are no overlaps, double-lines, skipmarks, or anything else. Above, Adam’s design is shown in hand-drawn form, and in laser cut test form.

The beauty of the laser cutter is its speed and precision. Last year, students drew their design in Illustrator, but then had to print the whole thing at full-scale on paper, and lay that paper over their taped boar, and hand-cut-out with an exacto the color fields they wanted to fill in. The taping method is precise (cover your board in painter’s tape, then cut out the areas of a single color, paint it, then the next, etc, to get precise lines), but is also quite arduous when all the cutting has to happen by hand. The laser cutter expedites the cutting process and allows students to go straight from design to painting by simply placing their taped board directly on the bed of the laser cutter.

Once all students had a test version of their laser cut design and we had confirmed production quality, the wooden boards were painted with a primer base, and in some cases, for students who had a full orange background, for example, with intricate designs on top, were able to lay down their foundation color. Then, the boards were taped using green “Frog tape” (painter’s tape), and placed on the laser cutter for the actual cut.

By the end of this week, we should have completed boards, as students go step by step through their color palette, peeling back one area, painting it one color, then peeling back the next, perhaps retaping and recutting a second layer of tape for accuracy. Because we have an odd number of students, Matt did one board a few days ahead of schedule to demonstrate each of these steps to students as we went through them. Below is his completed board using this taping and laser cut method. Nice!

Glen Raven, the innovative fabric and textile company based in Burlington, North Carolina, is a great example of creativity combined with industry. Today, two wonderful women from Glen Raven, Sue Rich (a Bertie County native and Bertie High School graduate!) and Paige Mullis, visited the studio to see what we were up to and speak to our students.

While we’re immersed in our Mini-Cornhole board project, the connections were clear: graphic design, envisioning big ideas and making them real, and execution using industry-standard tools were commonalities between the way we work in Studio H and real-world initiatives going on at Glen Raven. For many of our students, the utility of woodshop and metalshop skills are very obvious, but some of the more abstract design skills are not. To see examples from a company using the same skills they are learning to produce high-quality textile products was enlightening for our students.

Sue and Paige also brought along some goodies, including a tote bag and hat, which our students wore throughout the day (see above). We were glad to have visitors who could articulate the link between creative critical thinking and real job opportunities within a local market. Thank you Sue and Paige!

We received this wonderful piece of mail today, from an industrial designer from Southern California, who grew up just across the Bertie County line in Robersonville, NC. Enclosed were three donation checks, and a hand-written note that explained:

This past Christmas my brothers, sisters, and I decided to make a charitable donation in place of gift exchanging. Because each of us wanted to donate to a different charity we had a dance-off competition to decide where the money would go. And I won! …I love the work y’all are doing and hope this donation will help buy supplies or whatever you need for this year’s projects.

These things brighten our days, not just the financial support, but the hand-written notes that keep us inspired. Thank you!!

Similar to last year, we started developing basic woodshop and graphic design skills with the construction of an object everyone in Bertie County knows and loves: the Cornhole board. Cornhole is a beanbag toss game involving two opposing boards with holes in them, into which teams toss beanbags. Last year, we did full-size boards and auctioned them off to the community. This year, we are working with a few elementary school teachers to build mini-Cornhole boards that they can use in their classrooms to teach basic addition (the scoring system for Cornhole is similar to horseshoes, where you get varied amounts of points for where the beanbag lands, and you only get the net points above what your opponent scores). Another advantage to these smaller boards is that they fit on the bed of our laser cutter, so that when we go to tape off and slice away the patterns to paint atop them, we can cut those lines on the laser cutter, instead of hand-slicing the tape like we did last year.

Also like last year, we started with construction, giving each student a set supply of lumber and plywood for the frame, top, and legs. Following a standard set of shop drawings, students had to use their architectural scale and tape measure to measure the shop drawings and translate that into a 1:1 scale to build. Stick lumber was used for the frame, plywood for the top, and more stick lumber for the legs. The tools necessary ranged from the tablesaw and chopsaw to the router, sander, drill press (for the hole), biscuit joiner, nail gun, and router.

For exercises like this, precision is key. The beauty of working in the woodshop and building something to a set of shop drawings is that it gives our students direct and immediate feedback as to whether they have done the task correctly. This is a perfect example of the hand-to-mind mentality we teach in theory and practice: if your cornhole board is off, it is up to you to figure out what is wrong, how to fix it, and to go through the process of fixing the error without sacrificing the other components you have built correctly.

After a few days, each student had built their own mini board. Next, in pairs, they would make a set with the same color scheme (2 colors, as dictated by the beanbag sets. For example, two students might have been put together with the orange and red bean bags, and their color scheme would be orange, red, and tones and values therein.

While last year we used action verbs to inspire the graphic concepts: “hinge,” “rotate,” “bend,” etc, which came from a list the artist Richard Serra wrote to inspire his own work. This year, because we had such success with the “Knot-A-Problem” project in which students figured out, taught, and drew technical knots, we used some of the details from the knot drawings, extruding details and forms, repeating them, tweaking them, expanding them, and more.

Adam’s knot drawings which inspired his Cornhole board graphic

The process of using a drawing to inspire a full-size graphic for a cornhole board was non-linear, and there was no recipe for doing it. Depending on the student’s drawing, they might choose a corner of one drawing, or a full drawing with a particularly interesting curve. From there, they could repeat it like a tesselation, blow it up, shrink it down, scale it, rotate it, and otherwise adapt the form and extrude a design that filled their board. Using principles they learned a few weeks back, including point, line, plane, balance, scale, proportion, etc, they edited their designs and then began dropping in colors from their color scheme. Adam’s knot drawing, shown above, was turned into a wonderful complex and balanced graphic, shown in the video below.

Other students used similar tactics, turning a simple gesture or form from their drawings into something wonderful and graphic. Some were symmetrical and used more pattern, others were more assymetrical (a few shown below). Keisha used a wonderful green and black pattern and a chunk of her knot drawing that she had pulled out because of its complexity and replicability throughout her design.

Knot drawing to cornhole design

Keisha’s design

Next week, we begin the production process of these designs. So far, students have had to hand-draw their designs to-scale, and now need to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator so that we can use those lines to translate to laser cuts. We will prime all the boards, then cover in blue painter’s tape, using the laser cutter to slice the lines of each students’ design. Then strategically, students will peel away one color’s tape fields at a time, painting blue first, for example, then peeling back the tape covering the next color’s fields. The process requires patience and precision, and is a good lesson for students in the importance of taking time and care in one’s work.

After a few creativity-building lectures and exercises last week, we started on some basic skill-building in the woodshop. We did this same Shop Certification Project last year (detailed step-by-step account of the whole project here). The one-day project teaches safety, accuracy, layout, and basic woodshop protocol though the fabrication of a simple wooden object. The 2-piece object requires the use of a chop saw, table saw, drill press, band saw, sander, and router.

Each student is given a rectangular piece of wood that they must cut to specified dimensions using the chop and table saw. Using a ruler and triangle, they must then locate and drill a hole in the piece, then use the bandsaw to cut an arc at a particular curve and dimension. Students had to work off of (and learn to read) a shop drawing, and help each other through the individual steps (with strict instructor supervision and safety equipment, of course).

The simple task develops both the layout and production skills necessary for our next project: mini-cornhole boards. Because both precision of dimensions and production can be new to students, the certification project is crucial in building confidence and collective safety within the woodshop space, which we’ll be spending a lot of time in. The videos included here show the use of the drill press and bandsaw, and photos of each step of the process.

In our classroom, we talk a lot about “how to see,” and “how to look.” As creative and critical thinkers, our students must learn not just to speed through places and experiences, but develop tools to more thoughtfully look at a situation, problem, space, or topic, and see both the details and the greater context.

Adam, dissecting an image with point-line-plane

To begin to exercise these “seeing” muscles, we did a series of lectures on Color Theory, Gestural Drawing, and Point-Line-Plane (the basics of 2d design). These 3 lectures were accompanied by related exercises, including gesture drawings of images (5 seconds to represent its essence!), drawing the hand in 5-, 30-, and 60-second timeframes, and most notably, an exercise using the Curious Terrain Explorer’s Deck, “a creative toolbox for discovering and recording places.”

The deck was developed by a Portland-based designer named Jenny Marx who we met recently. It is divided into 3 sections: Discover, Record, and Wild Card. Discover cards might include “Sound,” asking students to listen for specific sounds and write a soundtrack to reflect the nature of the place, or “Paths,” asking students to observe and follow paths, both natural and manmade. Record cards ask students to interpret those observation, like “Postcard,” in which students have to represent and celebrate the place in a single image. Wild Cards are fun addenda, like “Through Others’ Eyes,” in which students must envision the place through the eyes of a dog, child, or bird, for example.

We sent students out in pairs, each to a different place, either in our own class space (the woodshop, metalshop), or in the surrounding area (the tennis courts, softball field, forest behind our barn, etc). With 3 Discover, 1 Record, and 1 Wild Card in hand, they spent one hour in the place, noting their observations and creating a record of those observations.

Raleigh and Leanna, for example, chose a space at the side of our building, which centered around an old pile of bricks covered in vines (showed above). They traced the paths throughout the space, around the building, on a paved path approaching the building, and most interestingly, the path of the shadow cast by the building’s roof, which, they noted, changed throughout the day but always led past the pile of bricks (which they found intriguing and beautiful). Davis and April discovered some similar brick-related clues on the other side of the building, where the trace of a paint marking on the building read “Bricklaying Shop” (below). Davis’ father had mentioned to him a few days prior that he himself had attended masonry classes in our building in the early 80′s. Davis, April, Raleigh, and Leanna, together unraveled the mystery of the building, the pile of old bricks, the traces of previous inhabitants, and the legacy of the building which we are now reinventing.

Meanwhile, at the softball field, Ryann and Desiree used their “Traces” card to track down evidence of human imprints on the place. They photographed litter, stones marking the numbers and names of celebrated softball players, and the peeling paint on the bleachers. They found the markings both evidence of disrespect for the place, but more so heavy use from a sincere love of the place, school, students, and athletes. Ryann describes their findings in the video below (and she photographed the bleacher paint beautifully below as well).

The point of this exercise was not for students to stare at peeling paint, but to deliberately go to a place and see new things, with intent and an open mind, through different lenses. As we move into architecture and design projects, this skill will be crucial in understanding a context from an analytical standpoint, but also in seeing possibility in what initially might appear to be uninspiring. We continue to “learn to see” every day when we know how to look.