For those who dont know me: I'm an italian math teacher.
I've been working with a new class of 13-year old students for two and a half month's. As work on solids, I made the students use sketchup one hour a week, for 8 weeks. I made them draw many things of increasing complexity (chairs, houses, tetrahedrons, ... cars).
I then collected all their cars and made an animation by using SketchyPhysics,
I find the result quite nice and wanted to share it here:
[Edit] This is the new version: sped up as suggested in the comments I think it is actually much better, thanks.
All cars were drawn by the students, even the blue convertible. The only thing I added, after being repeatedly required, are the shock absorbers of the monster truck.
Comments are really wellcome and appreciated.
[Edit - New Stuff - Google Earth] I coudln't resist and I made the students' cars work inside Google Earth. I did not write the code (it was written by someone at Google), I only changed it to make it work with the students cars.
Accept to install the plugin if required, it's great fun ...
I'm imagining a room full of thirteen year old kids Laughing incredibly loud. That proud laugh with each of them patting the others on the back and saying the Italian equivalent of "way cool dude" or "dude did you see the bus crash"...I'm sure you have a handful of students that think your the coolest teacher ever.
Phil Rader, AIA wrote:I'm imagining a room full of thirteen year old kids Laughing incredibly loud. That proud laugh ... and saying the Italian equivalent of "way cool dude" or "dude did you see the bus crash"...
You know Phil, I somehow needed to share this with you all 'cause the emotional tension of showing in the classroom the result of their and my work doesnt losen up easily ...
you know im like 14 years old right now and if you check on ma site you can see some of the earlier work i had done when i was the same age as those kids i think that since they alredy got the hang of sketchup they will use it in the future. By the way did you mention they could upload their cars to the warehouse? It would be pretty cool if there was a whole collection of "soap cars" made by 13 year olds
There are lots of interesting animations on the internet but your work and that of the school kids is inspiring. You should keep doing things like this, there is beauty in the learning for the kids-- and also a certain beauty in the film.
I wish I could have done stuff like that when I was a kid.
RayOchoa wrote:you know im like 14 years old right now and if you check on ma site you can see some of the earlier work i had done when i was the same age as those kids i think that since they alredy got the hang of sketchup they will use it in the future.
I know your works, they're really good stuff.
RayOchoa wrote:By the way did you mention they could upload their cars to the warehouse? It would be pretty cool if there was a whole collection of "soap cars" made by 13 year olds
MuseumMaker wrote:That is incredible. I watched it three times. ... there is beauty in the learning for the kids-- and also a certain beauty in the film.
I wish I could have done stuff like that when I was a kid. Thank you
Thats really cool. I wonder if you speeded things up and added the Wacky Races theme music to it whether a whole new feel could be created. 13 year olds should love that. I am assuming that you will know that Wacky Races was a very popular cartoon in the 1970's. (Oh dear, giving my age away!) If you don't know what I am talking about, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlTlL53KGRs
Dick Dastardly and Muttley were very popular. Actually, these are 2 cartoon characters SOLO should recreate!
Mr S wrote:Thats really cool. I wonder if you speeded things up and added the Wacky Races theme music to it whether a whole new feel could be created. 13 year olds should love that.
I think those are two good ideas (yes, I know wacky races). When I finished the animation I didnt thought about speeding it up, maybe I'll do another version.
Some students did want to learn Sketchyphysics and are now producing their versions ...
caddict wrote:great models and physics and video! when i was a kid one of the best parts of building a car was crashing it afterwards (i hope that wasn't just me)
Thanks,
Only after making the video I recalled the many afternoons I spent when I was a kid building ramps and watching my big collection of cars going down, hoping for my favorite to win ...
If my math teachers were ever that imaginative... I love the video, and the car design is also lovely. It's a bit choppy but that's a minor issue. Well done!
JHuman and Huggkruka, thanks for your comments. I'll be soon uploading a new sped up version, as suggested in various comments. I've already sped it up and it is actually much better (For some reason I didnt thought about it immediately).
About imagination: I just started by thinking that Sketchup is easy, fun and 3D and that therefore it was a good tool for studying and visualizing solids in school. Then the students loved it and the ideas grew up.
Speed*s film producers should ve seen this before they made the jumping bus on that broken highway
Elisei (sketchupper) ____________________________________________________________ Before no life was done on Earth it was THE LIFE ITSELF...GOD Come and See EliseiDesign
I coudln't resist and I made the students' cars work inside Google Earth. I did not write the code (it was written by someone at Google), I only changed it to make it work with the students cars.
Accept to install the plugin if required, it's great fun ...
Sketchyphysics + Chianti