David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy (DTSMA) Atomic Agora Tiny House — Lafayette, LA
The Atomic Agora Tiny House is a two-year, whole-school venture developed to solve local housing problems. Our focus is to instruct educators across the country on how to include projects like this into their everyday curricula. Students will build, share, and donate a 160 sqft tiny house focused on Environmental Engineering to Habitat for Humanity as a Wifi Technology and STEM Hub for the McComb-Veazey neighborhood in Lafayette, LA.
Our goal is to address the issues of housing problems within the growing population of Lafayette. Students are in the 2nd year of incorporating objectives of Next Generation Science Standards, Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Engineering practices, and National Math Standards to meet this goal. The project incorporates engineering design and Food and Nutrition principles for healthy living as well as valued Environmental principles that accompany the construction of a responsible habitat that can be affordable and fully sustainable.
Objectives for students include:
1. Develop experience with teamwork, project design, and project development
2. Participate in state-level collaboration and mentorship
3. Construct a sustainable, green energy home and use project management techniques
4. Use knowledge of online multiplayer virtual reality immersive learning techniques, architectural design and drafting, alternative energy principles, OSHA safety rules on construction sites, woodworking, cabinetry, as well as structural engineering and Department of Transportation and Safety standards for transporting homes
5. Apply Louisiana State JumpStart standards, physics, chemistry, mathematics, science, and Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Engineering principles
6. Design comfortable, affordable living space using CAD tools
7. Market ideas to investors that will sponsor the donation of materials and build of the house using 3D technology and public speaking strategies
The second goal is to integrate problem-based learning into all classrooms for National Accreditation. All students at our school will have the advantage of acquiring problem-based learning techniques involved in Engineering applications.
BROADBAND & THE NON-TRADITIONAL LEARNER A MODULAR, STUDENT-CENTRIC APPROACH
As part of the Mozilla project, I was granted the opportunity by Greg Laudeman of Magellan Advisors to be a part of a panel focused on Broadband and the non-traditional learner at the Atlanta Economic Development Conference for Broadband Communities Magazine in Atlanta, Ga. in early November. As an educator, I was extremely excited to connect with industry to present the ideas of how high school students are being prepared now for the work force of the future and methods to develop “homegrown” employees by plugging into high schools now for internships and mentoring programs. I would encourage all educators to attend an industry-based conference to replenish the fervor of knowing the work we do in the classroom is for a greater purpose.
David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy (DTSMA) students are producing virtual reality environments documenting The Atomic Agora Tiny House (“Atomic” Greek for tiny, “Agora” Greek for house or meeting place) project using the Nepris platform.
As a 2017–2018 Mozilla Gigabit Community Grantee, The Atomic Agora will address the need for more open innovation, digital inclusion, and web literacy within Lafayette Parish schools. Currently, not all schools have access to the technology courses available at DTSMA and Carencro High School. Schools in the district have been introduced to a new mandate to incorporate STEM in all areas to meet newly adopted Louisiana science and engineering standards. This project will provide the opportunity for educators and students to collaboratively learn with expert mentorship how to incorporate STEM projects into the classroom. With the assistance of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s School for Computing and Informatics and the NEPRIS platform, DTSMA Advanced Robotics students have been successfully able to create 3D imagery for a VR walk-through of The Atomic Agora prototype as well as test the virtual connectivity for online district presentations hosted by DTSMA to other schools in the district.
So far, students in the Advanced Robotics class have been working on learning Autodesk Maya and Unity 3D to create multiplayer virtual learning environments of the Atomic Agora and environments for science topics geared towards students in both middle school and high school ranging from physical science topics about the structure of atoms to circuits and conservation of mass activities for physics.
Students and mentors are using a website called Trello to maintain project management. Using this website allows students and mentors to communicate in a safe manner while tracking updates and assignments to meet deadlines.
Andre Garcia is an 11th grade student focusing on the Atomic Agora. He came into the course with prior knowledge of Autodesk Maya and Unity and is now using the course to plan his future as a software developer. According to his work so far, he has reviewed hotkeys along with properly setting up a scene in Autodesk Maya. Simple actions such as multiple duplications and mesh formations were covered. When duplicating, one can set an increment as to how many times you want to copy a set of mesh’s.
He also reports that a major element reviewed this week was the importing of objects into Unity and how to correctly transfer files. Andre further reports that when importing a model, he has learned that it is more efficient and safe to import models and their textured maps separate. Once the textures and models are imported into unity, one can quickly assign the textures to certain models. Keeping things in steps and organized can help with the finished product and can reduce the amounts of errors.
We also have another student working on creating a virtual practice field environment for our US FIRST Robotics Team 4353 for the team drivers to practice matches during build season beginning in January once our competition robot is complete.
The students plan to finish and fully test the full online system with 3 schools in our district including a middle school and 2 high schools by February 2018 when the Mozilla grant season ends.
If you would like to learn more about David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy and its Atomic Agora Tiny House, please feel free to visit our website at www.tinyurl.com/dtsmatinyhouse.
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