With construction underway on the exterior of Hillbrook’s newest building, The Hub, students are having a say on what will be needed inside. The expansive Hub structure will be a place where students are given permission to turn creative ideas into reality. This open, barn-like structure will have a variety of workspaces and room for students to tinker, explore, innovate, and problem-solve using traditional hand tools, as well as modern devices. It promises to be a game changer for Hillbrook students giving them access to tools and freedom to create. So when it came time to decide what we need inside the Hub, naturally the school turned to students for help.
This fall, a group of middle school students is working with faculty for their Reach Beyond Block known as, “Trickin’ Out The Hub.” During this six-week exploration, students are considering what resources the Hillbrook community might need in The Hub to help them explore, build, and create. Understanding that it’s not the tools, but what you do with them, it is still helpful to hear from students about the ways they hope to use The Hub, whether that means sewing costumes or designing an app. Students in the Reach Beyond Block experience are looking not only at which tools are needed, but how The Hub should be organized, and which technologies will be useful.
One of the faculty leads, art teacher Ken Hay, says the Reach Beyond Block is showing students what’s possible and they are eager to get to work. Hay shares, “Students are excited to use The Hub to make things with saws, hammers, and nails, as well as the vinyl cutter, laser cutter, 3-D printer, and large-format printer. Recently, students have also been expressing a great interest in trying out the new sound room, and giving podcasting a go.”
As part of their Reach Beyond Block exploration, students recently took a field trip to Steindorf STEAM School to see their new makerspace and then to Home Depot to see tools, get ideas, and make some small purchases of much-needed hand tools.
Hay says, “Teachers and faculty are also getting excited about The Hub. They are looking forward to trying out the new tools and technology and sharing in creative moments with their classes.”
The Hub will be a space where students will be inspired and challenged to take risks and be creative, to solve real-world problems, and produce actual physical products with a goal of learning by doing. This innovative workshop will combine the best of the old Hillbrook woodshop with modern devices that help students bring their ideas to life. The possibilities are limitless. In The Hub, students might build a robot, or make a rocking chair. They might design a house and use the 3D printer to make a model of the design. They might film and edit a movie, record a podcast, or design and build a video game.
The Hub will also be used as a collaborative learning space where art and mathematics, or literature and science come together in tangible, hands-on ways to help students make cross-curricular connections and enhance learning. A combination math and science class might ask students to build catapults and calculate launch distances or a science and music class might look at the physics of sound waves.
The next six week Reach Beyond Block sessions for Trickin’ out The Hub will focus on outreach to the Hillbrook campus community. Students will be interviewing peers and faculty to see how The Hub can best serve them. At its heart, the Hub will be a place of engagement where the Hillbrook community can choose explorations that are meaningful and which inspire them to be their best and see the best in others.