The energy was electric. The Church of All Nations was filled with “booths” of student projects and you could sense the excitement as soon as you entered. It was only 8:15am, but the space was packed with parents that made a special trip to campus to experience the Grade 4 Maker Fair firsthand. “I never did anything like this in school,” said one mom as she played an iPad game that her daughter co-programmed with a classmate.

What is the Maker Fair?

“The Maker Fair is another chance for Grade Four students to demonstrate their creativity and resilience while connecting to what they have figured out about energy transfer and transformation. We are proud of how our students were thoughtful in ideating, designing, testing, problem-solving, and taking risks for the last few weeks as they prepared for the event. Memorable learning happens when students can feel a sense of accomplishment after staying determined to overcome a design or technology problem, and we saw so much of that flexible thinking happening in the Garage and in classrooms throughout the grade level.”

Dillon Robertson, UP Technology Coach

Broadly, students utilized skills in engineering to build circuit kits from Makey Make or Hummingbird, or coded simple programs on apps like Birdblox and Scratch. The end products were brought to life with or without support from an iPad, and ran the full spectrum of creativity. Two students made their own version of the popular arcade game ‘Dance, Dance, Revolution’, complete with footpads that had to be stepped on in time with music that played on a nearby iPad. One pair created a quiz that would test your knowledge of Taylor Swift. Another duo created a special dishwashing “robot” with removable sponges to help with an unpopular household chore.

It sounds as if these projects would have taken weeks if not months to get right. So it’s surprising and impressive to hear that this project only took 2-3 weeks to complete! The Maker Fair was led by Hyun Hogan, the UP STEM Instructional Coach alongside Technology Coach, Dillon Robertson.

Coming up in Middle School:
ARCADE DAY OPEN HOUSE!

Creative coding and engineering doesn't stop in Upper Primary - come see the work of the Playful Inventions and Creative Computing students in Middle School. Families and teachers are invited to join a day of fun student-made arcade games between June 5-7, 2024.