Prompt

This activity will introduce you to the studio and build process, the available materials, and the studio themes. To do this, we will be researching and designing puppets that move like our favorite sea creatures. At the end of this session, you will put on a puppet show to show off your creations! This activity has five (5) parts:

1. Investigating Sea Creatures 
2. Summoning a Sea Creature 
3. Creating Your Sea Creature 
4. Documentation
5. A Very Deep Puppet Show

Instructions

Part 1: Investigating Sea Creatures

Research (10 min) Choose one of the sea creatures from our library in the Resources Tab, or select one you know about, and research how it behaves (e.g., eats, moves, swims, rests, plays?!). Yes, you can choose a sea creature/organism that is not in the library, but it has to be able to move!

Props (5 min) Look around our studio and the shop for props that you can use to assist you in demonstrating your movement to the rest of the studio.

Pantomime (5 min) Create a 10-second video of you moving like your creature! Feel free to add sound or narrations; have fun with it! You can use your computer to take the video or the school's iPads available.

Part 2: Summoning a Sea Creature

Gather (10 min) Look for materials that you could use to create a puppet that moves like your deep-sea creature. Keep an eye out for materials with interesting colors, textures, and shapes. Recycled materials are the only ones available!

Sketch (10 min) Based on the materials you have gathered, sketch out a design plan for your puppet. Try drawing your puppet design at different stages of motion and use arrows and labels to make your drawing clear. Your creature model should be around the size of your hand.

Part 3: Creating Your Sea Creature

Planning (5 min) We'll start by laying out the materials in the way they will go together to become your sea creature puppet! If you need to cut anything, mark it with a pencil or marker along the line where you want to cut. 

Skills (15 min) As a group, we will go through a few safety tutorials and demonstrations for putting different materials together. (Utility Knife Tutorial)

Build (20 min) You've got 20 minutes, go!

Part 4: Documentation

Posting your deliverables (20 min) At this point, your teacher will show you through how to post images on the platform. In the Response Tab of this assignment, make a post that includes:

1. The name of your inspiration sea creature
2. A photo of your inspiration sea creature
3. Your sea pantomime video
4. Your sketch photograph
5. Your puppet photos 

Part 5: The Sea Puppet Show

Practice and Go (5 min) Practice your puppeteering. Remember, this is a delicate operation: you are trying to breathe life into your creation! 

It's showtime! (20 min) Everyone gather together and put on a collaborative puppet show. You might want to record it for posterity! 

71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Our oceans are vastly unexplored. Increasingly we need to engage with our oceans as a result of climate change, population growth, pollution, and other impacts of human influence. Oftentimes explorers, scientists, ecologists, and rescuers find themselves in underwater situations where they don’t have adequate tools to fulfill their mission. What if we had robots to aid us in our efforts underwater? What if these bots were inspired by the years of evolutionary adaptation the natural world has undergone at these dark depths? Enter the world of deep sea robotics where the underwater environment calls for a shift in the way robots are designed and deployed.

In this studio, students will develop robots that use the depth of the sea to their advantage as they maneuver through the sea floors, slither through the kelp forest, and collect rare specimens unscathed using biomimetic grippers. Students will take inspiration from deep sea creatures and design devices and robots to carry out underwater missions to protect our oceans and cohabitate with diverse underwater ecosystems.

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