Primary students have been excited to have their first experiences in our new Primary Imaginarium. Last term, Year 5 and 6 sudents developed plans for the space including furniture designs. These ideas have been shared with a team of industrial designers who are investigating how we can turn these designs into reality. Students have also started ideating what lunch time experiences could be had in the Imaginarium. I’d like to encourage students to come into the space at 8 am each day to further develop and pitch these ideas to our Year 6 IT and Innovation Leaders and myself.

We have had a number of sessions running in the space already.

Year 1 students started their Digi Tech sessions with Ms Grieve, investigating what a computer is. The students wrote wonderings about the old technology in the space. They carefully observed Jackson  from IT take apart an old computer and have a chance to touch the various components. They asked lots of great questions. One student made the connection that a computer is like a city.

During Term 2, Year 1 and 2 students have been designing and creating Robots for Good during Friday lunch times. Students played with some of our newest robots at Emanuel and learnt about ways that robots are helping in our daily lives. This term, students will continue to prototype their designs for robots that could help in the classroom.

Year 3 students studied the first contact between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Sydney in Term 2. They investigated the concept of exploration through the lens of the Endeavour and the voyage of Captain Cook. As a continuation of this study, several Year 3 students learnt about other famous explorers and their voyages. They were given the challenge to design, build and code a voyage of exploration using our playground map and a Sphero. This term we will continue to build our prototypes, test their stability on the sphero chariot and code the sphero to take the path of the explorer. We also hope to film our voyages with a drone (thanks Mrs Tritsch for such a wonderful idea).

Year 4 students have been using the space to prototype their projects for the Emanuel Good Design Awards on August 10. In Term 2 the students looked for problems in their daily lives. They continued to dig deeper and empathise with who they were designing for by conducting surveys with parents, staff and students and by making observations. Students are developing prototypes through a storyboard, a persona or a model. Some of the projects include dream machines to aid sleep in younger and older people, creating solutions to remembering routines and belongings and redesigning the school hat.

Year 5 students experienced a Design Thinking workshop through the lens of The Party Project. Students had to conduct semi-structured interviews to find out about one of their peers. We focused on how framing a question or phrase differently can give you a different responses through the flower task. Students developed a prototype that experienced like (storyboard), looked like (map) or reflected one component of the party. They then pitched their party design to the peer for whom they were designing.

Year 6 students have been busy looking at the space and collecting data to design nesting tables as part of The Goldilocks Project. They have been interviewing students in Kindergarten to Year 6 about their table design preferences including height, how they like working and aesthetic features. We look forward to seeing these designs and specifications.

Year 6 students have also been using the space to reflect upon and film their process for the Tech Girls are Superheroes competition. The STEAMA 6 team developed an app that focuses on inspiring younger students into STEM fields, wrote a business plan and filmed a pitch.

The Green Team will be using the space to use Design Thinking to develop solutions to minimise waste in our School. Last term we shared their plans and images from how much rubbish we generated in one day at Emanuel. The Green Team will be in contact soon to collect some information about how you minimise waste in your home and how we might improve this at school. Check out how this one town in Japan did this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eym10GGidQU

Sophie Poisel, Innovation Leader

We also have our upcoming Primary Innovation-Athon this term, and the Primary Innovation Festival in Term 4. I look forward to sharing more about the happenings in the Imaginarium over the term.