IDEA Lab stands for innovation, design, engineering, and art. In this space, students are encouraged to create, change their minds, fail, and recreate, learning not only tangible skills, but also the resiliency to iterate and adapt. Students have the opportunity to work in areas such as 3D design and modeling, drones, programming, robotics, and woodworking. Students flex their critical thinking muscles as they come up with concepts, test them out, and rework ideas until they succeed. Through coaching and mentoring, students are able to innovate, take risks, and learn from their mistakes in a collaborative, supportive environment.
Some examples of recent projects have included:
- Sixth and seventh grade students created their own eating utensils to use on their Traveling School canoe trip using 3D modeling and printing.
- Kindergarten and 1st grade students collaborated with their middle school buddies to build solar ovens for their pizza-themed Storyline.
- Eighth grade students explored the world of "open-source" by developing a project and sharing detailed instructions for each step on the idea-sharing website, Instructables.
- 4th and 5th grade students competed on First LEGO League Robotics teams with other regional teams.