Student Work

Red screen: IU Media School present:

People horse around while intro music plays.

Man: You think we can get this done by the end of the school year?

Man 2: We’re at the end of the design phase.

A design program shows on the screen.

A teacher sits inside a classroom.

Teacher: We’re going to see the actual machine.

Screen shows ASL icons. Text reads: The Making of a Dream.

Exterior of a building. People line up and enter a lecture hall.

An emcee on the stage: Thank you so much for coming out this evening. This is our fifth annual Maker Challenge Showcase.

Awards for projects lie on a table.

Emcee: Students are challenged with dreaming up an invention, coming up with something that they could create.

Interior of a high school is shown.

Students’ projects are scanned.

Emcee: We’re going to take those ideas and have university students reimagine those, help develop and design them a little bit further. And our Hoosier Hill students, they’re going to help to build some of these.

Exterior of a classroom. Closeup of sign reading: Mrs. Gross. Grad 4. 324.

Interview with Charlene Gross in a Fairview Elementary School classroom.

Gross: I guess it’s hard to talk about yourself where you’re put on the spot a little bit, but I’m Charlene Gross, a fourth-grade teacher here at Fairview. This is my seventh year teaching, my fourth year teaching fourth grade. This class in particular — I don’t normally say that, but this is by probably my favorite group I’ve had so far.

Interior of a classroom filled with kids.

Gross: They all are a great community. They care about one another. The Makers Challenge in particular was really what I saw them bond together in teams.

Gross speaks to the camera.

Gross: And it didn’t matter when we were doing different challenges or different STEM projects along the way. Who was in what group? They were just like, all right, let’s get down. Let’s work together.

Fairview exterior is seen followed by the library shots.

Gross: My group of boys that made the dog distractor are probably the most unique group of workers I’ve seen. With two of those students, Brock and Lodyn, are DOH, or Deaf or hard of heaving students.

Three kids sit at a table and converse.

Gross: But the friendship that they created through that is one that’s a lasting one. I think because they work through those communications struggles, that just made their friendship bonds even stronger. And what they were wanting to learn.

Screen shows a logo background. Text: IU design presentation. First prototype.

Two people present to a room.

Presenter 1: We wanted to combine food with play. First, we have to look at all the different ways of we play and interact with dogs.

Presenters interact with kids in the classroom.

Presenter 1: This is basically what happens inside the cylinder.

Presenter 2: After a certain amount of time, this bottom circle rotates a little bit. Basically what we’re building is a device that dispenses a random or diverse amount of treats every 25 minutes.

Three masked kids stand at the front of a classroom and speak to the camera.

Kid 1: I think it was Brock that had the idea of it.

Kid 2 signs: My dog bit me. He scratched me as well, and I wanted him to stop.

Screen shows logo. Text reads: IU design presentation. Final prototype.

A classroom lights up while showy music plays,

The kids see the prototype.

Presenter 1: This to the top cylinders, it’s way cool to see the cylinders.

Jon Racek, comprehensive design Indiana University.

The reason I love this project is that my design students are working with demanding clients, which very much aligns with real life and real clients.

Racek speaks to the camera.

Racek: Students have to translate the ideas into the form of things that work. And then they have to prepare these prototypes to be translated into, into a way that people can actually make. Sam Crawford and Colton Snyder speak to the camera from within a classroom.

Snyder (presenter 2): Honestly, that’s our biggest role in this big project, between what the children want and what Hoosier Hills can do. That’s a big part of what our role is.

Design is shown on tape.

Snyder: Definitely been confirmed in lessons I’ve been told about, which is like “It takes a village to get anything done.”

Various graphs are shown in the design of the prototype.

Racek: They had two major challenges. The first challenge was the design brief was a little bit vague. They weren’t really sure what they were supposed to do.

Design students’ hands are shown as they work at a bench on the project.

Racek: And so it took some time to figure out what the fourth graders were really looking for with their project. The other big challenge for them was they were working with electronics and mechanical elements within the design. This is something that we don’t typically do a lot of in our program.

Racek speaks to the camera.

Racek: And so they were kind of out on their own and they were able to make something out of it.

Snyder and Crawford speak to the camera.

Snyder: We have to know that they have the parents that are the ones that are actually going to be using this and having it in their home. And so you kinda have to hear what the child has to say, then predict what their parents have to say and figure out how the dog’s going to react to it. And that’s a lot.

Kids walk into the lecture hall.

Gross: This is not just something made up for a fourth grader for something silly or fun. This is something that you could really do when you grow up. This is actually something you can make as a career.

Kids smile for the camera with their awards.

Gross: And so I think that that was like, Hey, we’re doing something we could do in our future right now. I think it really did make them feel empowered.

A man carries the prototype through a building while music plays.

Designers sit inside the Hoosier Hills Career Center.

Man: This is the dog distractor. Essentially the way it works is the container is at the top.

Man presents the prototype.

Man: This spins. Things will drop down into a bowl and the dog get it, including these ones.

Scott Bradley speaks to the camera.

Bradley: I’m Scott Bradley, Hoosier Hills Career Center, intro transportation and rec and mobile equipment.

People work on the prototype with power tools.

Bradley: This one in particular, I think was probably one of the toughest ones. And I think that’s why they gave it to us. We started with a bunch of wood and we build up something that’s going to have a purpose.

Bradley speaks to the camera.

Bradley: And I can’t wait the fourth graders to see it when they roll up.

Bradley speaks to a team in the workshop.

Bradley: Ultimately what we need to do is get the structure built, kind of weigh it, kind of see what it takes to tip it. Okay. Like if the winds gonna blow it over or something like that, then what we can do is if we need to put a little ballast on the bottom of it, we can we can do something like that. We could actually make it to where we bolt it or screw it to the boards just to make it good and strong. And then course we can put everything that we, the batteries and the electronics. We can put super low into it too. We don’t want, we want to keep all the weight down low.

Man measures a side.

Man: OK, 7/8ths, OK.

The team laughs around a table.

Bradley: We try to have a lot of fun in here and anything we do, you know, it’s just I don’t matter if it’s that, or that four wheeler or that golf cart or whatever. Yeah. We try to show them a lot, and hopefully they take heed to it and it takes them somewhere.

Screen reads: Hoosier Hills Career Center. Final reveal.

Interior of a school bus. Kids exit the vehicle and go sit in a classroom.

Piller: My name is Mr. Piller and I am the assistant principal here at Hoosier Hills. You see some things that look somewhat familiar. We’ve got the original dog distractor. Today, you’re going to see the updated version.

Kids show off their projects.

Piller: Congratulations and great job to the inventors and everyone who helped create the dog distractor. Congratulations, and thanks again.

Screen reads: Dog distractor inventors. Atley, Brock, Lodyn.

Kids face an interviewer.

Interviewer: What do you want to do when you grow up?

Kid 1: I want to be an astronaut.

Screen reads: IU design team. Colton Snyder. Sam Crawford.

Kids face an interviewer.

Interviewer: Nice, I found out that I’m too tall to be an astronaut.

Kids: What?

Screen reads: Hoosier Hills fabricators. Griffin. Wyatt. Riley. Cole. Ryan.

Interviewer: You have to be shorter than I am.

Kid 2: Wait how tall are you?

Screen reads: Special thanks to Susanne Schwibs.

Interviewer: Six feet, four inches. You can’t be over six feet, two inches, of six feet, three inches. Screen reads: IU Media School Team. Grace Fox. Wyatt Fritz. Dominick Rivers.

Kid 2: That’s just sad.

Screen reads: Cinematography. Grace Fox. Wyatt Fritz. Maybe you can be an astronaut when like when your bones start to get smaller.

Screen reads: Editing and sound. Dominick Rivers.

Kid 2: like when you’re an old person, you can be shorter then.

Screen reads: Original music. Written and performed by Dominick Rivers.