It’s alive! It’s alive! Lux club creates 'Frankentoys'

For two days last week, the Lux Middle School Media Center morphed into the Land of Misfit Toys.

Members of the after-school MakerSpace Club took part in “Frankentoys,” an activity that challenged students to create a new toy by using parts from other toys. The resulting “Frankentoys” were a little frightening: a pig nose on a gorilla; a shark’s head attached to a lamb; a lamb’s head with the body of a chicken and the legs of a human.

The club held the “Frankentoys” event Oct. 24 and 26, with 20 students participating each day. Students had a table of stuffed animals and dolls at their disposal, as well as a collection of spare parts from other toys. They tore into the toys with scissors and pieced together their new creations with hot glue, needles and thread, and power drills. (East High School student volunteers handled the hot glue and power drills.)

The MakerSpace Club’s goal is to introduce or reinforce future-ready skills in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art and math - STEAM for short. One of the club’s advisors, school librarian Kay Paulsen, said the Frankentoys activity met that goal in every way:

  • Science - the deconstruction and reconstruction of the toys
  • Technology - the use of unplugged technology and parts
  • Engineering - how various pieces fit together and were balanced
  • Art - using a variety of materials to create a product
  • Math - estimating the materials necessary to complete the task

“Each student approached the activity in a different way, but all were challenged to use computational thinking and being willing to hit the wall and find where the error was made and fix it,” Paulsen said.

Paulsen and co-advisor Lori Feldman, an instructional coach at Lux, have a number of activities planned for the club this year, including cardboard marble runs, circuits, murder mystery and crime scene investigation, coding and jewelry making.


Published: October 31, 2017, Updated: October 31, 2017

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