Comp design students bring children's dream machines to life

Source: MyMachine Global Foundation

MyMachine USA pulled off their 2nd successful MyMachine cycle! It finished with a reveal to the 2nd graders at Linton-Stockton School Corporation in Greene County, Indiana, on May 18th.

“We had better ideas working together as a group than if we would have done this all by ourselves”, says Jackson (7).

Along with Susan Anderson, Paul Shircliff and the Uplands Maker Mobile, MyMachine USA’s team led by Adam Maltese and Jon Racek, kicked off the experience in December 2022, getting children in elementary classes to invent their Dream Machine. Each child drew their Dream Machine before the full set was whittled to one design per class.

This year we had five great Dream Machine ideas from the kids that went from elementary students to Indiana University Bloomington students in Jonathan Racek’s class at IU Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, who created the designs and proofs-of-concept. These were transferred on to Quincy Millerjohn and his students at Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District in Wisconsin, who finished the builds and shipped them back to Indiana for the reveals.

Here’s the reveal video: we invite you to sit down and relax: watching this teleports you to this reveal in Indiana, where you can feel the excitement of the child-inventors:

Whereas the first MyMachine USA cycle focussed on running the methodology for the first time, this second cycle experimented with long distances, with students collaborating from schools that are as distant as a 7 hours-drive.

Thank you so much to all students and educators involved! And many thanks to our amazing MyMachine USA team led by Adam Maltese and Jon Racek!