In order to get ready to go to the World Maker Faire in NYC, The RHS Engineering Brightness students had to prepare a booth. That included making decisions about a table cloth, a banner, sponsor signs etc. Should we get a pop up poster? Where will people sit? Who will do what activity? Where will we put the soldering iron to teach kids how to solder? Should we purchase the table cloth or make it? What should we make it out of? Does anyone know how to sew?

They choose to omit a popup poster, purchase a perforated banner and sew their own table cloth. We sent the graphics away to a print company, but that still meant they had to learn how to sew.

They borrowed a sewing machine and brought it into the physics lab. Over 4 lunch hours, with some coaching from another student, they taught themselves how to sew, the ability to sew over pins if they are placed horizontally or vertically, the ability to rotate by keeping the needle down and folding the edges.

Some of them were good, some of them were terrible. At best, they learned that they could make their own things by sewing and at worst, they appreciate that different people are skilled at different things and that school usually only focuses on one kind of SMART.

It is more about “HOW ARE THEY SMART rather than “How Smart Are They?”