Upper School Studios

Last year, we launched Studios in the middle school as a new format intended to give greater choice and variety to students, create new spaces for them to connect with friends outside of their band, and provide opportunities to learn deeper skills, use higher-quality tools, and produce more professionalized work. They were a big success, resulting in a lot of enthusiasm from students and a flurry of unique showcases: a screening of experimental animations, a ceramics pop-up display, a shadow puppet performance, a playable cave crawler game, and an exhibit of interactive mechanisms.

It was so much fun that this year we're thrilled to expand the Studios across the Upper School and offer another brand-new, exciting lineup for students:

Body Parts Studio facilitated by Gever and Liam
Students will learn to design, build, and program bio-inspired robotic arms. They will be designing their own 3D parts using CAD software, fabricating the parts on the laser cutter, assembling their robotic components, and programming it all in Python.   

Techno Wizards studio facilitated by Jun and Rich
Students will explore different modalities of movement drawn from yoga, martial arts, juggling, and strength training, learn about physiology and the science of the human body, embark on their own personal fitness challenges, and practice data visualization to represent their own skill growth.

Experimental Animation Lab facilitated bySam
Students will produce a series of shortFrankenstein films, splicing together found materials from a variety of sources. For the lab's first experiment, students will learn about the history of collage stop-motion animation, view work from filmmakers like Terry Gilliam, Stan Vanderbeek, and Kathleen Quillian, and produce their own stop-motions from materials gleaned from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse and Craphound magazine. For the second experiment, students will plunder sound archives and record unusual sounds to re-soundtrack vintage film scenes and create new interpretations.        

Fine Arts Studio facilitated by Shirvan
Students will hone their drawing and painting skills, learn how to use graphite, charcoal pencils, and oil paints, while also learning how to blend colors and build light and shadow on the page.  

Body Talk Studio facilitated by Mandisa
Students will explore the ancient theatrical tradition of pantomime, learn how to express emotions and ideas through gesture, improvise on stage, and develop characters with unique physical traits.  

Now that students have toured each Studio, ranked their preferences, and been placed, they are hard at work on their first sets of projects.

We are excited to share more in a couple weeks to see how it all progresses!