Fall Student Showcase Coming November 2
October 26, 2022 | Christina Swan
Mark your calendars for Waterloo’s Fall Student Showcase on Wednesday, November 2, at 7 pm!
Our students have taken a deep dive into the design process this term, but what exactly is the design process?
Imagine taking a class where you are presented with a challenge that you need to address for a specific audience. As a student, how do you go about doing that? What knowledge needs to be acquired, practiced, and put into action? What tangible thing needs to be created to address this need?
We don’t provide much direction on the specifics; it’s something our students must figure out for themselves. Are mistakes going to be made? Most definitely. Analyze and try again? Yes. Eventually, they must not only create something that addresses the need of the design challenge but also present their project to an audience.
How much deeper (and more memorable) is the learning process when we approach it this way? When students are tasked with a challenge to serve a specific audience need, the level of student ownership, ideation, and executive capacity grows. When we approach learning this way, a course transcends route assignments and assessments into something tangible — designed and built by the students to share and be proud of.
If you would like to be a part of that audience and are in the Austin area Wednesday evening at 7pm, please join us at Waterloo. Our students are eager to share the stories and projects of their fall term courses, learn more about their exhibits below!
History: Cities and Towns Designed for Good Living.
Ever wanted to design your own city? Ever wonder, “why don’t we build places to live that are as cool as the towns and villages we want to go visit on vacation?”
Spanish: Cuentos Para Niños (Storybooks for Children)
Who is a tougher audience: a teacher or a young child? Yes, definitely the latter. Come see the Spanish I students’ children-tested Spanish-language storybooks
History-English-Theater: Life and Death at the Grand Central Cafe, Vienna, 1914
What was happening on the eve of WWI, when Stalin, Hitler, Freud, and Trotsky were all sipping coffees in the same town, exchanging ideas, and dreaming up a future that… was like nothing anyone could have imagined? Ideas have consequences, and theirs certainly did.
Engineering: Design for a Need, Design Backwards, Design Better
Ever been inside a working camera? Not in a honey-I-shrunk-the-kids way, but in a let’s-build-a-camera-big-enough-to-enter way. What makes a camera take good photos? How do you design a better flashlight? What will make a building earthquake safe?
Chemistry: The Waterloo Test Kitchen, Vol. 2
Baking is chemistry magic. Ever think a brownie should have more chocolate? Or less flour? Or what would happen if you tried to swap the butter for something to make it better for your health?
