Kids Show Off Their Tech Skills At Viewpoint Makerfest

CALABASAS, CA — First grader Kaia Dougherty launched her paper rocket in the air as a crowd of kids and parents watched with anticipation. It was her second attempt because her first didn’t go very far, she said.

“Kaia! Kaia! Kaia!” the crowd of onlookers chanted.

Dougherty's bright pink and purple rocket (her favorite colors) soared high over the small basketball court at Viewpoint School, rounding out in the sky and landing out of sight on the roof of the gym.

Clad in colorful striped tights, Dougherty ran over to give out high fives to her brothers’ third-grade friends crowded behind a barrier safely away from the rockets.

As the sticker on her pink shirt now proudly stated, she had made it to the rooftop club.

Dougherty's rocket launch was one of many triumphs at the first day of Viewpoint’s 5th annual Makerfest, a three-day expo for elementary school students to show their parents what they learned in their tech and creative production classes.

To the unknowing onlooker, Viewpoint's Makerfest looks like a tinkering kid's wonderland — the library was lined with activities such as LEGOs, a massive marble run, an oversized bubble blower and a sloped train track. However, for the three teachers who designed the 32 Markerfest activities, it is a year-long undertaking.

The activities are designed to challenge students while still allowing them to show off what they've learned in their Innovation Space classes, which include creative design and production, working with tools, robotics, coding and other tech activities.

"We want to give them enough that they are empowered," said teacher Lisa Kessler, who designed the stations at Makerfest alongside teacher Travis Shojinaga and technology specialist Alison Steelberg Corneau. "We want them to feel empowered and share their skills that they learned during the year with their families. So we look for projects that kind of meet that mark.”

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Organizers were particularly proud of this year's station modeled after artist Yayoi Kusama's "obliteration room," an interactive exhibit at the Tate Modern museum. Kusama's exhibit features a blank white room that visitors cover with colorful dot stickers. As an homage, Makerfest had a corner covered in white paper with props to look like an apartment that students and their families decorated with dot stickers.

Students helped design many of the activities featured at Makerfest, such as a marble run that was designed and 3D printed by the fourth graders and a big bubble blower made by the third graders using design software, Kessler said.

Krystal Dry-Murphy, a graduate of Viewpoint School herself, said it's really special to see her first-grade daughter, Kennedi Murphy, work independently as well as collaboratively with her friends at Makerfest. Aside from eating chocolate at the "candy huggers" booth, Kennedi Murphy's favorite activities were the rockets, big bubble blowing and a station where students could make their own stop-motion video.

Kessler, who has attended Makerfest as a parent as well as a teacher, said the experience inspires pride and joy.

"There’s a lot of joy in this," Kessler said. "Being a Viewpoint parent and having experienced it with my child, for me it was one of the highlights,” Kessler said. "[There's] a lot of laughing, a lot of smiling and I think just triumphs. You can see them get excited when they’ve connected with something or had a success. So, as a parent, I don't think much gets better than that."

The sense of personal pride associated with seeing a project through is important to the students' learning and growth, said Associate Head of School Robert Bryan.

“All our grade levels are always making and doing. Sometimes it's sewing. Sometimes it's coding, but they always love coming to the innovation space and working with their friends to create something," Bryan said. "I feel like our graduates have a great deal of self-awareness and self-confidence because of all the experiences they have beyond the core academic classroom."