March 2 - Personalize Learning by Making with Vinyl

Welcome to our second annual March is for Making series, where we strive to share 30 posts in 30 days that are filled with inspiration from our #makered community.

Our second post features inspiration from a group of young ladies who discovered making with vinyl this summer during TechSavvy Girls camp.

Check out the tips they share on how to use the Cricut Explorer to personalize water bottles, shopping bags, and more.

During our week-long TechSavvy Girls camp, we encourage the girls to explore new technologies. The week includes both guided exploration and open time to create, make, and explore new technologies. Hands down -- the favorite piece of technology this summer was the CRICUT EXPLORER and a large box filled with colorful rolls of vinyl.

After a brief tour of how the machine works, the girls were quickly figuring out how to create new designs in Google draw and produce decals that personalized some of their favorite items - from shopping bags to water bottles.

The experience gave the girls a chance to not only design decals, but it also provided them with the opportunity to design a workflow that would allow a roomful of students to successfully create to their hearts content sharing a single Cricut Explorer.

The Workflow for Creating the Cricut involved 4 parts

Part 1 Imagine and Plan - Creating your Design using Google Draw

Part 2 Layout  your Design exported from Google Draw into the Cricut Design Studio and get it ready to send the Design to the Cricut Software.

Part 3 Load the colored  vinyl into the Cricut Carrier and watch the Cricut cut the vinyl

Part 4 Weed away the vinyl that is NOT part of your design.

Part 5 Transfer the design to your object (water bottle, shopping bag, etc)

Check out this video to see all 5 parts of the process and keep reading to pick up some tips and tricks we learned along the way. 

Before you Start

Tip # 1  - Install the driver on one a school computer and test the cutter at least a day before you plan to use it with students. 

We discovered was that the school’s firewall made it challenging to install the drivers on the school computers.  After some work with Cricut’s tech support and the school tech coordinator, we were successful using a manual command line solution   That computer became the ONE computer that would be tethered to the Cricut Explorer for the rest of the week.

Tip #2 - Do not encourage students to create their own CRICUT accounts if they are under 13. 

Not only does this violate their legal terms of service due to COPPA regulations, but it also would result in your students getting lots of unwanted email from the company!

Terms of Service:  If you are under thirteen (13) years of age, then please do not use our Site or engage in any Sponsored Activity. There are many other great websites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.

What we did was to create a Google  account that would be the primary account to access the cutter.  (ie - cricut@yourgoogledomain.org)

Tip # 3 Create a shared Google Folder for designs to be dropped into.  

Place the link to that Shared Google Folder on your class webpage, Google Classroom, LMS,  or simply make a short URL  that you put on the board or  taped to the Cricut Cutter itself.

Part 1 Imagine and Plan - Creating your Design using Google Draw

Tip #4  Some important skills

• Customize the size of their Google Drawing
• Locate creative commons images to add to their design
• Keep designs SIMPLE - START with ONE color designs!
• Use the Tool options of Image Search
• 
  
• Use large fat fonts or Word Art when adding text to their Google Drawing
• Download the Google Drawing Design as a PNG
• 
  
• 
• 
  
  Then drop  the PNG to the Shared Google Drive

Part 2 Layout  your Design exported from Google Draw into the Cricut Design Studio and get it ready to send the Design to the Cricut Software

The second part of the Process  happens on the computer that is hooked up to the Cricut.
This Google Account controls the Cricut.  It also has access to all the files in the shared folders.

We soon had a backlog on this machine, but the girls were great at learning from each other.

There was usually 3 campers working through the process.

1. The person who was setting up their design in the Cricut software
2. The person who just finished  with their design was there as coach.
3. The person on deck to use the cutter there was shadowing to learn the process.

At one point the girls created a Wait List so everyone would know where they were in line.  There were plenty of other fun activities, but the Cricut was always in use.

Tip: Next year, I think we will want two Cricut accounts.  

One for the person who is cutting their design and one for the person on deck.  By going through two computers one station can be for  doing the Part 2 image manipulation  with the other computer station reserved for cutting the vinyl.

Tip:  Follow these steps  to load your Google Drawings into the Cricut Studio Software.

Find your image in the shared folder and download it to the computer running the Cricut Design Studio.

Create a New Project on the Studio

Choose UPLOAD image.

Select  the Simple IMAGE type (since we decided to make simple designs) then hit CONTINUE

Look for the ERASE Tools

Use the Select and Erase Tools   to erase areas of the picture that you want to remove

TIP:  SAVE as Cut Image and Label the files carefully.

Be careful here!  Its easy to miss this step. 

THEN choose  SAVE as a CUT IMAGE - 

Make sure to Add a name and TAG to make it easier to find your image later as the list of images grows quickly and becomes hard to manage. 

Then click UPLOAD Image and select the image you just saved by clicking on it in the images.  TIP: If you can’t find it,  use type the name you used to save your image in the search box

Click on the Image you want then click INSERT in bottom right hand corner

Scale or move your image to a place where you have placed some vinyl on the map

The next step is to make sure the Cutter is properly set to CUT the vinyl.  To do this, click on your image layer in the right hand side  right below the word LAYERS .  If you click on the little scissor or little printer icon, the layer window should pop up like this.

When the layer  attributes opens up,  click on the CUT icon right under the words Layer Attribute   to turn your layer into a layer that will actually be cut!  You should now see that the scissors  icon instead of the print icon on your layer. 

YOU are almost ready!    Look at the top right corner and lick the green MAKE IT button.

Preview your project one last time!

Make sure everything looks good!

Hit Continue!

You’ll get one last opportunity to make some changes. This step previews where the vinyl will cut on your Cricut Mats. 

If you need to move the item over on the mat.. Simply hit EDIT

Tip: Try to layout your design to use as little Vinyl as possible.
Keep the extra pieces around for little projects. 

Part 3 -  Load the colored  vinyl into the Cricut Carrier Mat  and watch the Cricut cut the vinyl

Part 4 - Weed away the vinyl that is NOT part of your design.

Tip:  Dental picks work great for this!

Part 5 - Transfer your new vinyl design to your object to personalize it. 

Tip: Water bottles, plastic shopping bags, laptop cases, waste baskets or other items from the dollar store are great places to start! 

Tip: Be prepared for the unexpected!  

Once the girls felt confident with the process, their imagination started to run and before we knew it one of the girls had figured out a way to achieve a multi-colored fish bottle.  

Still others started imagined blinky lights and added sewable LED’s to their bags.

They were ready for more! Even on the last day of camp, the Cricut Vinyl cutter was the last thing packed up as the girls refused to leave it and some  parents  had to use some creative coaxing to drag their daughters away!

How would having a Vinyl cutter in your school library or maker space give students new ways of expressing themselves!   Would it be a tool they would reach for?  Would their new confidence and skill help them imagine new ways to show what they know?

I bet these students would!   What type of  communication tools do your students have access to.

March 1 - Making Makers with a Maker Mindset

Welcome to our second annual March is for Making series, where we strive to share 30 blog posts in 30 days that are filled with inspiration from our #makered community.

Last year we created a gallery of inspiration where our #makered community shared school maker space tours, classroom maker projects, and fun maker tutorials. 

This year we have even more stories of maker educators sharing how they include creating and making to help students learn.  Stay tuned throughout the month for stories of educators on their own journey of creating confidence through making.  We have some virtual tours of maker spaces coming  your way. You'll find  some helpful "how" to tutorials that  include maker projects and tips we've picked up along the way. 

As the Create Make Learn community continues to grow through our annual summer institute and through the people we create and make with throughout the year, the ideas and inspirations also grow - and we'd like to share some of our favorites in a new post each day during this   March is for Making series. 

As we gear up for another month of sharing and inspiring each other, I'd like to kick things off with a poem that reminds us  that a maker space is not a room filled with fancy3D printers, laser cutters,  and electronics.  A maker space is that amazing space between your ears!  The space where you will imagine and start to create.  It's that place where your maker mindset kicks in and becomes the most important tool in your journey of creating and making.


Last August,  during the closing of our  Create Make Learn Summer Institute when everyone was sharing their take-aways from a week of creating, making and learning,   a fifth grade teacher from Beeman Elementary held up an oversized cardboard 'A' that she had made and shared her latest creation - a  poem that captured her take-away from the week  about the value of a maker mindset! 


Enjoy her impromptu recitation of her poem in this short video.

You Need an A

It’s just an A you may say

But I beg to differ

A common A in the eyes of an untrained mind

Unwilling or able to see

The potential of an A

Anywhere, anytime, anyplace

An A can become much more..

A Megaphone

Cheering the soul

To see more, hear more, create more, be more.

Why an A could be a truss in a grandeur Bridge,

Spanning the edge of two to become one.

Or the side of a towering skyscraper

Overlooking the sea of humanity

Have you thought of a giant A

As a crutch, or a stretcher on the

Worst fall you’ve ever had?

Everyone deserves an A

When your chips are down

And there is no place else to hang your gaze.

Or better yet, two A’s

Combined to make a special pair

Of glasses to shield one from the rays

Of a once in a lifetime solar eclipse

Or angel wings when you say

Goodbye to a friend, a grandmother

Or a memory too painful to forget.

You’ll need an A

On a day when your daughter

Goes off to Kindergarten,

Everyone needs a bow to go along with

Their dimples of  joy.

Or a bowtie for the prom of your first

To be old enough to make you realize

Your days are numbered

In the best job you’ve ever held.

So an A for you can be a discarded piece of trash

Fit only for the reduce, reuse, and recycle bin.

You could close your mind to the creative urge

To make the A bigger than who you are.

Or you can embrace the A

Call it your treasure instead of trash

And proclaim to the world, “It’s NOT just an A!”

                 
                   ~ Annette Carter  (2017)

Makers on the Move - Adopting Our Glowforge

Makers on the Move - Adopting our GlowForge Laser Cutter

During our recent stay in San Diego county, we took possession of our long awaited GlowForge laser cutter.

This was not an easy task!

When we got the “Your GlowForge is ready to be shipped” email, we were so excited and quickly provided them the address of our campground in Desert Hot Springs only to learn that GlowForge wanted us to give them a delivery address that would be good for a 6 week window.

We are rarely in any location for 6 weeks during this time of year. In just 3 weeks, we would be moving the bus to Quartzsite, Arizona where we’d be off grid for a couple weeks, then off to spend 3 weeks at Guajome Regional Park in San Diego county to be near family.

 

It seemed like the safest thing to do was to ask my sister-in-law if we could have a package delivered to her house, since we knew we’d be seeing her near the end of that six week window. I must have forgotten to give her details about how big the package was. When it arrived a few days before Christmas, she curiously opened a package from “GlowForge” thinking that her children had bought her an electric fireplace for Christmas.


Meanwhile, it was killing me to know my GlowForge had arrived and was sitting in their garage for weeks before I could get my hands on it. I guess a few more months isn’t that bad when you’ve been waiting for over 2 years.


On January 31, 2018 we finally got to unbox the GlowForge laser cutter.

The unboxing was a delightful almost magical experience.

We were literally up and running and had our first print within the hour. Some very smart people put a lot of thought in that experience.

Unboxing the GlowForge Video

The GlowForge was obviously well protected during its travel to us.

Out of the box, our first impression was -

THIS is a beautiful piece of equipment!

Steve Jobs would have been impressed!

The Glowforge came in two boxes which contained the unit itself, a black crumb tray, a power cord, a print head, and blue cylinder. Some orange clips, and a few pieces of red hardware protected the GlowForge during travel. 

The crumb tray slid right in. 

The Printhead and ribbon cable snapped right into plac

We attached the venting tube to the Glowforge and place it out the window.

Within minutes we were plugging the power cord into the wall and ready to press the prominently placed ON button - which was begging to be touched!

Watching the coolant start to bubble and flow through the laser tube made us feel like we were about to experience something magical.

The GlowForge setup process lead us to connecting the GlowForge to wifi, and through 3 well done tutorials that introduced us to the cloud based workflow for laser cutting with the GlowForge. Within an hour we had completed the 3 tutorials showing us how to engrave, cut and score with a GlowForge. We were totally impressed with the seamless and friendly user interface, the GlowForge cameras that allowed you to cut your own drawings, and how easy it was to bring in color coded files created with 3rd party software.

I promise to follow up blog post with a more detailed look at how easy it is to interact with the GlowForge.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t take the Glowforge back to the bus until we prepared a space for it, but thankfully we had a second playdate planned.

A few days later,  on Super Bowl Sunday, my nephew-in-law and I spent a few hours playing with the GlowForge while everyone else watched the Eagles beat the Patriots and Justin Timberlake entertain  the crowds. 

What a honor it was to have my second playdate with the Glowforge be with a talented young architect! Everyone agreed that the precision was amazing and the results met his standards as a professional.

GlowForge on Super Bowl Sunday

After this successful Super Bowl playdate, we finally were ready to bring our GlowForge home.

We measured carefully and concluded that we would be able to transport the GlowForge in our Jeep if we left most of the packaging behind. 

One of the challenges we faced was what do do with all this packaging. GlowForge warned us to KEEP the $250 dollars worth of packaging in case we needed to ship it back! Well when you live in a bus, every square inch needs of space is premium. I vividly remember trying to convince my husband that we could find space for an extra cutting board! After much deliberation, we  strategically selected a few pieces of packing material to keep the laser from being damaged during transport to its new home and the rest of the materials went into the recycle bin. I seriously considered mailing it back to GlowForge! But for now, positive thinking - and hoping my GlowForge experience will be trouble free!

After quite a bit of conversation and brainstorming, we decided that we could give up our kitchen table and eat at our workspace desk to make room for the GlowForge.

GlowForge Moves into the Bus

Alas our time in San Diego County has come to an end, and we’re ready to hit the road again.

We’re gearing up to spend the next few weeks off grid in the desert!

It will be our first time traveling with GlowForge in tow! It will also be the first time we will be using our GlowForge off grid!


Stay tune! 

Blog Post on Deck  

• Moving off grid with our GlowForge 
• The GlowForge Cloud-based Workflow
• First impressions from the Classroom Educators

Cross Posted on our Travel blog Living Learning Mobile