In this two part lesson, students will be using Google SketchUp to extend their exploration of multipurpose bus shelters. Students will share their files to the Google SketchUp Warehouse collection “seeking shelter”. As an extension, students from other schools may download your students’ files and add more bus shelters and roads into the environment,connecting their structures to your students’ creations. In this way, collaborative communities will form in common virtual spaces. Students can also annotate their creation and invite students from other schools to envision multipurpose bus shelters that address specific needs.
Workshop 1: Students will learn the basic tools of Google SketchUp, relevant geometry vocabulary and they will learn to build a basic structure with a door and two windows. They will add their pattern creations and explore the lighting tool. This is a tutorial workshop.
Click here to see video of samples from Workshop1.
Workshop 2: Each student team will collaboratively create a bus shelter addressing a community or environmental need in their community. They will be annotating the models with a description of the need they are addressing and perhaps add an invitation to another school to explore that need as well. The Workshop 2 models are added to the online Slot Shelter Google SketchUp Warehouse Collection . Student teams at other school have the option of download the models and creating another structure in that virtual space as well as creating a connecting bridge or road to the previous structure. What additional functions can bus shelters serve? Students will also use libraries of patterns they created in earlier sessions as the surfaces of their 3D designs.
Workshop 2 study: Bus Stop design create by a 5th grade student. Patterns were created in Repper Pro from photos taken of local community. Actual designs will be created in teams and students will annotate image with information about the shelter/structure need they are addressing.
Click here for Lesson Plans for these SketchUp workshops.
Below is a great tutorial to begin learning Google SketchUp.
Creating shelters together and exploring the Cartesian coordinate system!
Students will build structures in Google SketchUp and learn how to plot planes and points along the x,y,z axis lines.
Cartesian coordinate system (copyright free/public domain image by Jorge Stolfi)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system
Some vocabulary words to weave into the lessons:
- orbit
- coplanar and non-coplanar
- vector
- perpendicular
- tangent
A cool site for quick interactive visual on coplanar and non-coplaner and perpendicular: http://www.mathopenref.com/coplanar.html
The above Math Open Reference website is a wonderful site for interactive geometry definitions.
Copyright: Corinne Takara (CC BY-NC 2.5)