Our engineering students built a LEGO tower to the ceiling. So, they needed to create an elevator to the sky to get to up there.
Tag: environmental engineering
The Winners Of Our Play-Well Summer Photo Contest Are…
Our Play-Well Summer Photo Contest has finally come to an end. We had so much fun seeing all the creative entries submitted this summer. All of the entries were great in their own right. We asked you to vote for your favorites and here are the results.
1st Place with 108 Votes: Elena, Play-Well In Sign Language
2nd Place with 106 Votes: Katy from Connecticut, Play-Well LEGO Heads and Star Wars Transport
3rd Place with 96 Votes: Tomoe from Seattle, Play Well Shadow
Play-Well Staff’s Pick: Amy from Los Angeles, Human Play Well Sign
Check out all the awesome photo entries here: http://bit.ly/2013PlayWellSummerPhotoContestEntries
Thanks so much for participating! Like our Play-Well Facebook Page to find out about our next Play-Well LEGO contest.
Need A Certain LEGO Piece? Visit our Play-Well Parts Shop!
Because our teaching kits have over 20,000 pieces of LEGO, we are constantly in need of additional LEGO pieces. So, we created a Play-Well Parts Shop to supply our teaching kits located across the country with LEGO pieces. A few years ago, we decided that if we were already supplying LEGO to our kits, why not create a public Play-Well Parts Shop so LEGO builders of all ages in the area could do the same.
In our Play-Well Parts Shop, kids and adults have access to over 100,000 pieces of LEGO to purchase. There are at least 150 variations of LEGO pieces to choose from. LEGO Mini-figures, LEGO bulbs, LEGO Bow Tie pieces, and fluorescent LEGO jewel pieces to name a few.
This is a sample of the type of LEGO pieces we have available at our parts shop.
All parts are individually priced out.
We have had many LEGO builders find pieces that they needed for a particular project here.
We always recommend to our Play-Well families to purchase pieces online, but if you don’t know what piece you are looking for and happen to be in the Northern California Area, come by our Play-Well Marin Center (216 Greenfield Avenue San Anselmo, CA) and visit our parts shop.
Click HERE for more information on our center.
If you aren’t able to make it out, here are some great places on the web to find rare LEGO pieces:
We love seeing LEGO Builders of all ages able to accomplish a really big project that they have been planning for quite some time, and we hope this parts shop can help builders achieve their goal.
If you have trouble finding the center, look for the LEGO Golden Gate Bridge in the window.
PLAY WELL!
Play-Well Summer 2013 Photo Contest
Hi Play-Well Families,
After our successful photo contest last summer, The Brick Stanley Project, we have decided to do a new summer photo contest this year. For this contest, we are asking our families to take a picture of the words PLAY WELL, spelled out in a creative, unique, slightly ridiculous way. We see “Play Well” as not only our name, but also our philosophy on how our organization works. When our engineering students are playing well in class, they are solving problems, exploring the world, and learning about themselves through play. When our staff is playing well, they are having more fun than they have had at any other job. So, we wanted to spread the message of playing well and here is how we are going to do it:
Here are some examples of photos already submitted:
Carter & Rogan Schmidbauer, Phoenix, AZ
Brandon Jones, Kirkland, WA
Santa Barbara, CA
Lester Mendaros, Pleasanton, CA
Ben Pfister, Ventura, CA
When you have taken your photo, you can submit it in the following ways:
- Post it on our Play-Well Facebook Page
- Tweet it to twitter.com/Play-Well_TEK
- Email it to jeff@play-well.org
Check out our current submissions here: http://bit.ly/2013PlayWellSummerPhotoContestEntries
You can even submit more than one photo if you’d like. We will gather all the photos from the contest and in August, we will have our Play-Well Families vote for their favorite photo. The top three winners could win a Engineering with LEGO® Birthday Party, a LEGO® Technic Set, or LEGO® Bow Tie. All photos will be included in our upcoming video, so everyone wins. Voting ends at 11:59 PM on Labor Day, September 2nd. We hope you enter the contest. If you have any questions, email Jeff at jeff@play-well.org.
PLAY WELL THIS SUMMER!
Jedi Green Engineering with LEGO® Camp Featured In Monterey News
We offered one of the first JEDI Green Engineering Camps in the country in Monterey, CA. Utilizing the world of Star Wars, we taught kids about Green Engineering & Green Technology. Central Coast News of Monterey was there to do the story. You can get more information about the program below.
Jedi Green Engineering Camp with LEGO® In Monterey
WHEN: MONDAY, JULY 1st, 2013 – FRIDAY, JULY 5th, 2013, 9 AM – 12 PM (no camp on July 4th)
WHERE: MONTEREY YOUTH CENTER, 777 Pearl St., Monterey, CA 93940
WHY: Play-Well TEKnologies, in collaboration with the City of Monterey Recreation Department, is running the first ever JEDI Green Engineering with LEGO® camp in the country. It is an experimental program that combines the world of Star Wars with environmental engineering, as a way of introducing sustainability and green technology to kids. It asks the question, through the make-believe world of Star Wars: can kids better learn how to help save the real world through green tech? This program incorporates STEM teaching in a way that has never been tried before.
Play-Well’s Monterey Bay instructor, Alon Keller, is a devout Star Wars fan, and has a passion for green engineering, having graduated from CSU Monterey Bay with a degree in Environmental Science. He has helped craft Play-Well’s Green Engineering curriculum and thought combining this popular JEDI genre with his green passion could make for an amazing, experimental program.
“If you look at a Star Wars encyclopedia, at the spaceship designs, their main power sources are supplemented by solar panels on the wings. Which is very cool… the Star Wars universe seems to lend itself already to thinking about one’s environment. When you look at the way “A New Hope” begins in a desert planet, George Lucas built a set in Tunisia. It’s very obvious that a lot of thought went into what kind of adaptations people would need to survive in that environment. The people live underground and have to mine for water. It’s a really integral part of the characters’ developments. The Ewoks are also shaped by their environment and habitat. Likewise with Hoth. There is aquatic life on Naboo… it’s a very diverse plethora of habitats you are exposed to. Because it is a very technologically advanced setting, it allows you to think about the ways these civilizations have devised to extract the maximum amount of resources… Back in the 70’s, maybe talking about the environment wasn’t quite as prominent. Maybe the City in the Clouds was a reaction to the OPEC oil crisis. In episodes one to three, there was a lot of mining. It is very important to a technologically advanced civilization to have access to these resources that provide power for this vast fleet of ships. Talking about the environment is a good way to talk about Star Wars.”
Source: Lucas Films (http://lucasfilm.com/)
Photos from Episode 1: A New Hope
Alon hopes this experimental LEGO® program will help create a whole new way of building kids’ passion and interest in green technology. Maybe it will even inspire some future JEDI environmental engineers along the way.
For more information, please contact Alon Keller at 818-645-9567 or alon@play-well.org. Play-Well TEKnologies programs are not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by the LEGO® Group.
All Girls Engineering with LEGO® Camp Featured On Q13 Fox & King 5 In Seattle!
Our All Girls Engineering with LEGO Camp was featured on two local Seattle News Stations, Q13 Fox and King 5. Here are the two stories:
Q13 Fox Seattle
King 5 Seattle
ALL GIRLS ENGINEERING WITH LEGO® CAMP PROGRAM
WHEN: MONDAY, JUNE 24TH, 2013 – FRIDAY, JUNE 28TH, 2013, 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM
WHERE: Phinney Neighborhood Center
Lower (Brick) Building, Room No 36
6615 Dayton Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103
WHY: Play-Well TEKnologies is running an all girls Engineering with LEGO® program for 2nd – 5th Grade female students at the Phinney Neighborhood Center. It is the first all girls engineering program of its kind conducted in the Phinney neighborhood that addresses STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Education.
A recent study by the National Science Foundation and the American Association of University Women found that female university graduates were earning less than 20% of Bachelor’s Degrees in STEM related fields. This existed even though the number of H.S. female students identified as “mathematically gifted” (scoring above 700 in the Math SAT exam) was over 33%. The goal of programs such as Play-Well’s is to help introduce these STEM fields at an early age to girls, demystifying engineering, so that these young female students can see themselves one day as engineers, computer programmers, and scientists.
Play-Well Washington’s Manager, Molly Lebowitz, is one of the 20% of female engineers who achieved her degree in the male-dominated engineering field. Molly graduated from Cornell University and used to work for an environmental engineering organization. She contributed to the EngineerGirl initiative through the National Academy of Engineering for 5 years. While at Play-Well, she quickly noticed the gender disparity in the building classes for youngsters. As a result, Molly has been instrumental in expanding Play-Well initiative in Washington to give young girls dedicated opportunities to try their hand at building and experimenting with mechanics in a fun, collaborative space. “This is not just pink LEGO. In fact, the curriculum is virtually identical to the co-ed programs. We are simply removing the minority pressure, and fostering the way girls play in the context of building and construction.” With a few LEGO pieces, Molly hopes this initiative will help build a few future female engineers.
Play-Well Engineers
For more information, please contact Molly Lebowitz at 206.310.0678 or molly@play-well.org. Play-Well TEKnologies programs are not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by the LEGO® Group.