Email: pestrada@hightechhigh.org
Projects
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Lakeview
For this project, students made machines which generate a wave like motion. Everyone had to learn about motors, gear ratios, electricity, woodworking, tension and compression, and more. Each project uses the same motor at the same speed, but students modified the gear ratios of their projects to produce waves and different frequencies according to what they thought would be interesting. |
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It Gets Funkier
The class learned about tessellation and patterns by making these mechanical tiles. Each is powered by a motor and gear train that is tuned to show as many interesting intersecting patterns as possible. This project was interrupted by school closures in March 2020 |
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Second Nature
Frequency Illusion: once you've noticed a phenomenon, you think it happens a whole lot, even "all the time". Your estimates of frequency are likely to be skewed by your noticing nearly every occurrence that comes past you. For this at home project we replicated common physics demonstrations at home a tried to improve them. The class created a Physics Cookbook so that anyone can replicate their favorite versions of their favorite demonstrations |
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Making Space
In the Fall of 2018, the senior class looked around their school and identified spaces that they wanted to leave better for future students. Each group designed, proposed and fabricated a piece of furniture to make their common space as kick ass as possible. |
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Rotational Volumes
In collaboration with their math teacher the students designed three dimensional shapes which were used to study calculus. In the shop we presented and displayed these shapes in as creative a way as we could. |
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Changed by Chairs
In collaboration with a humanities teacher students designed a chair which paid homage to an under celebrated figure from history. Each group created a piece to celebrate their chosen subject and I helped them make sure it didn't fall apart. |
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Physics of Climate Change
For my first semester long project I chose to have students represent climate change concepts as mechanical sculptures. There were varying levels of success and I would do this really differently now. It's interesting to look back and learn from my early experience. |
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Pendulums
No grades, no assignments besides the project. After finishing a semester long project early students had the change to do something more creative and try out a crazy idea that I had. Everyone made a paint-dropping pendulum and created large scale paintings for fun and learning. |
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Inclusive Grouping Podcast
To learn about better grouping strategies I interviewed a few teachers from my school. I decided to try making the interviews into a podcast because at the time everybody wanted to make podcasts with their students. After doing it myself I chose not to make this into a full project |
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Microscopic Images
As an academic coach I led a short project with a physics class where everyone made their own microscope. Everyone took images of something they thought was interesting and we displayed the final images in the school. |
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Inspraytion
For a two week intensive project I helped students learn about spray painting with templates. We designed pieces to be painted directly on the ceiling tiles of our building that were representations of verbs from Richard Serra's verb list. |
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60 Word Stories
Trying new things as a teacher can be scary. I wanted to find a creative way to wrap up the semester with students and a friend suggested I try this miniature project. It was out of my comfort zone but I was rewarded with awesome student work. |